The purpose of the study was to disentangle the effects of simultaneous interpreting experience and training on working memory, to examine the effect of language, modality and recall on working memory scores, and to associate memory scores of trainees with interpreting quality. Working memory scores were compared in the L2 reading span task (performed by professional conference interpreters, bilingual controls and interpreter trainees tested before and after training) and in the L1 reading span task and L1 listening span task (performed by interpreters and controls). Data was collected from 68 participants in experiment 1 and from 51 participants in experiment 2. It was analysed by means of linear models, regressions and t-tests. Professional interpreters consistently outperformed controls on all working memory tasks. They performed better in L1 than L2, and their scores were not affected due to modality (visual vs. auditory presentation) and recall mode (serial vs. free). Interpreter training improved working memory scores. Trainees’ higher scores predicted better interpreting performance. This was the first study to adopt a longitudinal design to examine the effect of training on memory of conference interpreter trainees. The study shows that interpreter training (but not experience) improves working memory capacity and predicts interpreting performance.
We address the question of whether the cognitive advantage of the bilingual mind, already demonstrated in the case of auditory processing or novel word acquisition, also applies to other linguistic domains, specifically to phonetic and phonological learning.
We compare the performance of 17 monolinguals and 25 bilinguals from Canada in a production experiment with two tasks: imitation and spontaneous reproduction of a novel foreign accent, specifically Sussex English.
To eliminate potential sources of variability, our focus is on a sound already existing in the subjects’ production (the glottal stop), but differently mapped to surface representations in the novel accent to which they were exposed (i.e., as an allophone of coronal stops in word-final position). We measured the glottal stop rates of our subjects in baseline, training, and post-training.
The two groups behaved differently, with bilinguals showing a larger increase of their glottal stop rate post-training. Our results are thus consistent with a bilingual advantage in phonetic and phonological learning.
We interpret these findings in light of recent psycholinguistic work and conclude that echoic memory strategies, possibly underlain by stronger subcortical encoding of sound in bilinguals, may account for our results by facilitating the re-mapping between existing mental representations of sounds and existing articulatory command configurations.
Our study adds to the body of work suggesting that there may be an advantage of bilingualism in second dialect learning in adulthood, and provides an explanation in terms of perceptual strategies in which echoic memory is involved. We also contribute to the body of research suggesting that imitation of an action can result in improved understanding of that action.
As some Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies claimed that native speaking (NS) students outperform language minority (LMi) students, far-reaching inferences have been drawn by policymakers. However, previous PISA assessments were not appropriate because they only included a dichotomous home language variable. The main objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of how students’ language background and use are related to academic achievement.
The PISA data from 2012 provides a unique opportunity to fill this research lacuna as it includes a more elaborated questionnaire on language background and use.
Multivariate three-level analyses are conducted on PISA 2012 data from 18 countries, covering about 5,000 schools and 120,000 students.
The results show that there is an achievement gap between LMi and NS students for both reading and math. After controlling for students and school characteristics, the LMi–NS achievement gap narrows, but remains significant. This holds true for most countries. However, language use per se is not the cause of underachievement: LMi students who more often speak a minority language with their parents do not achieve less. In some countries, speaking a minority language more often with parents is actually positively related to math and reading achievement. Nevertheless, speaking the instruction language in the school context is positively associated with math and reading achievement.
This study revealed that the relation between language use and academic achievement is more complex than it was conceptualized in most previous PISA studies. Scholars need to go beyond the dichotomous approach to achieve a better understanding of language use. Our results show that linguistic diversity could function as an asset for academic performance, at least if a good balance between focus on minority languages at home and instruction language at school can be found.
With language characteristics shown to be a factor mediating bilinguals’ metalinguistic awareness, the present study attempts to give a clearer picture of the impact of language characteristics, avoiding confounds such as exposure opportunities and language experiences, which previous studies with comparisons made between monolinguals and bilinguals were subject to.
Two groups of bilinguals speaking the same first language (L1) but different second languages (L2s) were tested for their performance on a morphosyntactic awareness task. Other confounds (L1 proficiency and nonverbal intelligence) were statistically controlled.
After five outliers were deleted, data from 22 Chinese–English bilinguals and 20 Chinese–Southern Min bilinguals were analyzed, by mainly using analyses of covariance.
The results showed that, with nonverbal intelligence and Chinese proficiency controlled for, Chinese–English bilinguals scored significantly higher than their counterparts only on the past tense suffix task, one tested feature in which Chinese and English differ but which both Chinese and Southern Min lack. They did not, however, differ on the other contrasting feature, present suffix, probably due to its inconsistent presence in English. The two groups showed no difference on subject–object–verb and inflectional negation features that both their L1s and L2s lack.
Unlike the metalinguistic awareness measure (grammatical error detection and correction) commonly used in previous studies, our task was adapted into a version using an unlearned third language (L3) (Japanese), which could reflect children’s cross-language transfer of metalinguistic knowledge. Besides, our metamorphological awareness measure was focused on inflectional morphology, whose influence on the bilingual advantage should be important but has yet received scant attention in the earlier literature.
The overall results cross-validated the important role of language characteristics in bilinguals’ development of metalinguistic awareness and suggested that the metamorphological awareness is likely to facilitate bilinguals’ learning of an L3.
The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which multilingual second language (L2) speakers of Norwegian manage to produce lexical pitch accents (L*H{macron} or H*LH{macron}) as expected in natural spontaneous speech. Using native speech as a reference, we analyse realizations of multilingual speakers whose respective dominant languages are Lingala, a lexical tone language, and Swahili, a non-tonal language with fixed stress, and hypothesize that this difference might be reflected in the speakers’ competence in the East Norwegian tone system.
We examined a corpus of spontaneous speech produced by eight L2 speakers and two native speakers of East Norwegian. Acoustic analysis was performed to collect fundamental frequency (f0) contours of 60 accentual phrases per speaker.
For LH and HLH tonal patterns, measuring points were defined for quantitative evaluation of f0 values. Relevant aspects investigated were (a) pattern consistency, (b) f0 dynamic range and (c) rate of f0 change. Pattern consistency data were statistically evaluated using chi-square testing. The dynamic range and rate of f0 change data were explored through to linear mixed effects models.
We found no really substantial differences between the speaker groups in the parameters we examined, neither between the L2 speakers and the Norwegian natives nor between the Lingala and Swahili speakers.
This study is a contribution to the scarcely explored area of L2 acquisition of tones. It is concerned with languages that have received little or no attention in the field: Norwegian, Lingala and Swahili. Participants are multilinguals who have extensive language learning experience. Further, the study is based on a corpus of spontaneous speech.
Recent findings on the mechanisms of lexical access suggest that bilinguals are sensitive to the orthographic structure of their languages. Several studies have demonstrated that if presented with language-specific sub-lexical information, bilingual adults use this information to speed up word recognition, which provides evidence for language-selective lexical access. In the present study, we investigated the presence of such an early language detection mechanism in children.
Forty-six balanced bilingual third-graders performed two seemingly monolingual lexical decision tasks, one in English and one in German, including nonwords with different degrees of word-likeness in each language.
Accuracy scores and reaction times were analyzed for nonwords using mixed-effects models with the statistical software R.
Results show no impact of language-specific sub-lexical information on children’s performance in either task. We argue that bilingual lexical access is initially language-nonselective, and that sensitivity to language-specific orthographic structures first emerges over time. In contrast to bilingual adults, language detection in bilingual children is exclusively based on lexical information.
The present study provides first data on the detection mechanism for language membership at the early stages of bilingual reading development. We are the first to demonstrate an important difference in the architecture of the bilingual lexicon between children and adults.
Findings contribute to knowledge on the development of lexical access in bilinguals and pose limitations to the generalizability of the Bilingual Interactive Activation Plus (BIA+) extended model.
The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of speech development across successive generations of heritage language users, examining how cross-linguistic, developmental and socio-cultural factors affect stop consonant production.
To this end, we recorded Sylheti and English stop productions of two sets of Bangladeshi heritage families: (1) first-generation adult migrants from Bangladesh and their (second-generation) UK-born children, and (2) second-generation UK-born adult heritage language users and their (third-generation) UK-born children.
The data were analysed auditorily, using whole-word transcription, and acoustically, examining voice onset time. Comparisons were then made in both languages across the four groups of participants, and cross-linguistically.
The results revealed non-native productions of English stops by the first-generation migrants but largely target-like patterns by the remaining sets of participants. The Sylheti stops exhibited incremental changes across successive generations of speakers, with the third-generation children’s productions showing the greatest influence from English.
This is one of few studies to examine both the host and heritage language in an ethnic minority setting, and the first to demonstrate substantial differences in heritage language accent between age-matched second- and third-generation children. The study shows that current theories of bilingual speech learning do not go far enough in explaining how speech develops in heritage language settings.
These findings have important implications for the maintenance, transmission and long-term survival of heritage languages, and show that investigations need to go beyond second-generation speakers, in particular in communities that do not see a steady influx of new migrants.
Are emergent bilinguals sensitive to register variation in their use of communication strategies? What strategies do LX speakers, in casu Spanish speakers of English, use as a function of situational context? What role do individual differences play?
This within-speaker study compares Spanish second-language English speakers’ communication strategy use in an informal, peer-to-peer conversation and a formal interview.
The 15 hours of informal and 9.5 hours of formal speech from the Nijmegen Corpus of Spanish English were coded for 19 different communication strategies.
Overall, speakers prefer self-reliant strategies, which allow them to continue communication without their interlocutor’s help. Of the self-reliant strategies, least effort strategies such as code-switching are used more often in informal speech, whereas relatively more effortful strategies (e.g. reformulations) are used more in informal speech, when the need to be unambiguously understood is felt as more important. Individual differences played a role: some speakers were more affected by a change in formality than others.
Sensitivity to register variation has not yet been studied within communicative strategy use.
General principles of communication govern speakers’ strategy selection, notably the protection of positive face and the least effort and cooperative principles.
In this study, we aimed to examine whether five-year-old children with varying first-language (L1) vocabulary skills benefitted differentially from second-language (L2) teacher-led group talk and peer-play talk when acquiring L2 vocabulary in preschool contexts.
The participants were 26 bilingual children, speaking Turkish (L1) and Norwegian (L2), who participated in a longitudinal study. At age five, they experienced variability in the amount and diversity of the L2 talk they were exposed to in interactions with teachers and peers.
Preschool L2 talk exposure was assessed by calculating the density of word tokens and word types in video-taped teacher-led group talk and in peer-play talk. The children’s vocabulary skills were assessed in L1 at age five and in L2 at ages four, five, six, seven and 10, using translated versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III. To obtain a more reliable estimate of the children’s L2 vocabulary skills we used data from all time points to fit a longitudinal growth model.
Children with more developed L1 vocabulary skills who were exposed to teacher-led talk and peer-play talk with a high density of tokens had more developed L2 vocabulary skills at age five. This interaction effect remained after controlling for maternal education.
Few previous studies, if any, have analyzed whether the interaction effects between L1 vocabulary skills and L2 exposure may impact L2 vocabulary skills; that is, whether children with more developed L1 vocabulary skills are more prepared to make use of the L2 environment.
Interdependency among languages may be mediated by classroom talk quality. Rather than limiting the discussion of L1–L2 relations to issues of direct transfer, future research should include children’s experiences with using socio-pragmatic skills when interpreting word meaning.
The main research question we seek to answer in the present study is: "What effect does reduced input in the non-dominant and dispreferred language have on the acquisition of Russian gender morphology by a bilingual Turkish–Russian child: Is it still sufficient for its monolingual-like development or can it cause incomplete acquisition of Russian gender morphology, at least, in some domains?"
This study is a longitudinal case study.
The main source of data collection is video and audio recordings. Twenty-five recordings are available. They cover the period of between two years and 11 months (2;11) and 4;0. The data are examined in terms of the availability of masculine, feminine and neuter form-related genders, as well as availability of feminine and masculine semantic-related genders of nouns and pronouns in the first-, second- and third-person contexts. We look into whether the data of the bilingual child is marked with deviations from monolingual Russian data and/or incomplete acquisition of gender in any domain.
The findings of the present study, on the one hand, support the view that, by and large, reduced to a certain degree, input is still sufficient for monolingual-like language development; on the other hand, it demonstrates that reduced input may lead to non-monolingual-like and/or incomplete acquisition and, therefore, appears to be a main factor determining the development of a language and accounting for its strengths and weaknesses.
Previous research has demonstrated that literate adults activate orthographic representations to map spoken words onto printed referents as they hear a word. This study examined the time course of orthographic activation during spoken-word recognition in L2 context, taking into account of L2 proficiency.
We used the printed-word visual-world paradigm, in which participants saw four words on a computer screen and clicked on the word that matched spoken input. Twenty-one native Japanese speakers and 55 learners of Japanese with the L1 English background took part in this study.
The eye-movement data were analyzed using time-dependent mixed-effect logistic regression models. Our models included time and proficiency as fixed effects and participants and item as random effects.
The pattern of the results identified the activation of orthography during speech processing by native Japanese speakers. The results from the L2 learner group showed that L2 proficiency was attributed to word recognition efficacy.
This study is the first to employ the printed-word visual-world paradigm to track L2 learners’ real-time orthographic activations of Japanese hiragana.
The pattern of the results confirms the applicability of the printed-word variant of the visual-world paradigm in L2 research, emphasizing L2 proficiency as an important factor in the integration of orthographic and phonological information.
This paper’s objective is to offer new insights into the effects of language on memory for causation events in a second language (L2) context. The research was driven by the question of whether proficient L2 users acquired L2 thinking-for-speaking-and-remembering strategies along with the relevant expressions for different types of causation (intentional versus non-intentional).
The cognitive domain of causation is an ideal platform for this investigation, since the lexicalisation of causation differs clearly in the two languages under consideration, English and Spanish. Spanish speakers always distinguish between intentional and non-intentional events through the use of different constructions. The English pattern of lexicalisation in this domain often leaves intentionality unspecified. Our methodology involves an experimental elicitation of event verbalisations and recall memory responses to video stimuli by English and Spanish monolinguals and bilinguals.
The analysis has shown that the Spanish monolinguals and first language (L1) Spanish/L2 English speakers always distinguished between intentional and non-intentional events, while the English monolinguals and L1 English/L2 Spanish speakers generally used expressions that were underspecified with regard to intentionality.
All populations used their habitual language patterns as an aid to memory. Spanish monolingual had better recall than their English peers. L2 speakers were mainly relying on the L1 in spite of speaking only the L2 during the experiment.
Possible effects of these typological differences between an L1 and an L2 on speaker recall memory have not been investigated before.
The research presented in this paper informs the theoretical assumptions related to the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis by showing empirically that late bilinguals adhere to their L1 patterns as an aid to memory while speaking in their L2. This novel finding contributes to an improved understanding of language processing and language use among late bilinguals.
This study examines the language anxiety that occurs in immigrants’ daily lives when speaking the heritage language and the majority language, both in their host country and during visits to their home country. It compares the levels of heritage language anxiety and majority language anxiety across three generations of the Turkish immigrant community in the Netherlands and explores the link between immigrants’ language anxiety, and sociobiographical (i.e. generation, gender, education) and language background variables (i.e. age of acquisition, self-perceived proficiency, frequency of language use).
A Likert scale-based questionnaire was administered to 116 participants across three generations who reported their language anxiety levels when speaking the heritage language and the majority language in three social contexts (i.e. family, friendship and speaking with native speakers).
Statistical analyses revealed that heritage language anxiety and majority language anxiety were prevalent in immigrants’ daily life, and that levels of both forms of anxiety differed across generations, and in different daily life situations. First- and second-generation immigrants typically experienced majority language anxiety, while second- and predominantly third-generation immigrants suffered from heritage language anxiety. Relationships emerged between language background variables and both forms of anxiety, but only in certain situations. These findings suggest that language background variables on their own may be insufficient to explain immigrant language anxiety in certain social contexts (i.e. within family). Rather than merely language background factors, a variety of other issues within social, cultural and national currents must be considered when examining language anxiety in the immigrant context.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach that combines language contact and foreign language anxiety/second language anxiety research, this study suggests that the concept of foreign language anxiety/second language anxiety should be expanded beyond the confines of the classroom to include daily interactions of immigrant or minority communities.
This study contributes to the limited body of evidence on the topic of language anxiety in immigrant contexts and presents a new construct ‘majority language anxiety’.
This study investigates heritage speakers of Spanish in the Netherlands regarding their knowledge of Spanish mood. Previous research has demonstrated that heritage speakers of Spanish in the US have problems with mood, especially subjunctive mood and particularly in contexts where choice of mood is variable and depends on semantic and pragmatic factors. Moreover, heritage speakers are often reported to experience fewer problems with oral production tasks tapping into implicit knowledge than with judgment tasks targeting metalinguistic knowledge. This study aims to investigate whether these patterns can be confirmed for heritage speakers of Spanish in the Netherlands.
In all, 17 heritage speakers from the Netherlands and 18 monolingual speakers of Spanish completed a contextualized elicited production task. Each item contained a context targeting either indicative or subjunctive mood. Below each context followed the beginning of a sentence which the participants were instructed to complete. Both obligatory and variable uses of mood were included. The results were compared to findings from a contextualized scalar acceptability judgment task described in an earlier study using the same conditions and the same participants.
All responses were coded as felicitous or infelicitous given the accompanying context and were analyzed using mixed effects modeling. The results demonstrate that the heritage speakers are less accurate in their choice of mood than monolingual speakers, particularly on subjunctive mood and in variable contexts. Furthermore, heritage speakers deviated more from the monolingual patterns in the production task than in the judgment task.
These results confirm several patterns attested for heritage speakers of Spanish in the US, namely the increased vulnerability of subjunctive mood and in contexts where mood is not obligatorily selected. However, in contrast to previous literature, this study reports better performance on a metalinguistic judgment task than on an oral production task. This finding is attributed to differences in societal circumstances between both heritage speaker populations.
This study confirms the heterogeneity of heritage speakers as a population and emphasizes the importance of taking societal circumstances into consideration.
To date, the vast majority of research on the linguistic abilities of heritage speakers has focused on young adults whose heritage language is no longer developing. These adults began their journey as bilingual children acquiring the heritage language with the majority language simultaneously since birth or sequentially, as a second language. If longitudinal studies are not always feasible, linking research on the structural development of bilingual pre-school children with research on young adult heritage speakers adds a much needed perspective to understand the initial state and the end state of heritage language development. The purpose of this study is to connect the beginning of heritage language development with its ultimate attainment by comparing the expression of subjects in Spanish in 15 school-age bilingual children and 29 young adult heritage speakers, all of them simultaneous bilinguals with English as the dominant language and Spanish as the weaker language. The oral production of null and overt subjects by child and adult heritage speakers was compared to that of age-matched monolingual speakers in Mexico (20 children, 20 adults). To provide a wider context the study includes a group of 21 adult immigrants, who could also potentially influence the input to the heritage speakers. The results confirm that discourse pragmatic properties of subject expression in Spanish are vulnerable to incomplete acquisition and permanent optionality in child and adult bilingual grammars.
This paper compares the language of child bilinguals and adult unbalanced bilinguals (heritage speakers) against that of bilingual native speakers of their home language (baseline). We identify four major vectors of correspondence across the language spoken by these three groups. First, all varieties may represent a given linguistic property in a similar way (child bilinguals = adult heritage speakers = bilingual native speakers of their home language). This occurs when either (i) the property in question is highly robust and is acquired by learners without difficulty or (ii) the property is already in decline in the baseline. We illustrate scenario (i) with data from Russian count forms, which are morphologically quite complex. The preservation of these forms in child bilinguals and adult heritage speakers suggests that simplicity of encoding is not the only factor determining robustness of retention. Second, child and heritage speakers may share a linguistic structure that differs from the one found in the baseline (bilingual native speakers of their home language = child bilinguals = adult heritage speakers). This scenario occurs when incipient structural changes in the baseline become amplified in the language of next-generation bilinguals, or when a given structure is rare, confined to a specific register, and/or reinforced through literacy. Third, a structure may be acquired by bilingual children faithfully, but undergo reanalysis/attrition in the adult heritage language (bilingual native speakers of their home language = child bilinguals = adult heritage speakers). Russian relativization illustrates this scenario; child bilinguals show native-like performance on relative clauses but adult heritage speakers show an exaggerated subject preference in the interpretation of gaps. Finally, a structure that is not fully learned by child speakers may be reanalyzed by adult heritage speakers following general principles, thus bringing the adult heritage representation closer to that of the baseline (bilingual native speakers of their home language = adult heritage speakers = child bilinguals). Heritage speakers’ production and comprehension of psychological predicates in Spanish illustrates this possibility.
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the grammatical constraints on discourse particles in Chinese–Japanese intra-sentential code switching in light of the general framework of the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model augmented by the 4-M model.
This study retrieves data collected for three years from three Chinese–Japanese bilingual children aged between 2;1 and 5;0.
The database consists of nearly 300 hours of spontaneous conversations that are audio-recorded from the families of the three bilingual children, as well as diary entries. It shows that a large number of code switching utterances involve discourse particles.
Qualitative analyses of the data indicate that discourse particles are generally constrained by the MLF, yet they do not fit into any category of the 4-M model. Morphologically bound, discourse particles represent the information structure of a sentence (as in the Japanese topic marker -wa) or encode constraints on the inferential processes (as in the Japanese complementizer -kara) rather than truth-conditional information. They manifest some idiosyncrasy at the interface of syntax and pragmatics, and set up the MLF at a discourse level. Thus, the MLF model is extended from a merely syntactic level to the syntax–discourse interface.
The present work has contributed empirical evidence from a hitherto undocumented language pair of Chinese and Japanese, and made theoretical explorations on the linguistic constraints of discourse particles.
On one hand, it is work that provides support for the robust nature of universality of the MLF constraints on code switching. On the other hand, discourse particles exhibit typological features that need further theoretical exploration in order to make a more comprehensive account for the grammatical constraints on Chinese–Japanese code switching.
This study provides a comparative-theoretic account of code-switching in Azeri-Farsi-English multilingual communities in the USA and Iran. The salient differences between the grammars of these communities, I claim, reside in the relative ‘value’ each community places on the two relational constraints: POWER and SOLIDARITY.
I follow Bhatt and Bolonyai’s (2011) optimality-theoretic framework for the analysis of inter-community variation.
The data are drawn from over 15 hours of audio-recorded natural conversations among Azeri-Farsi-English multilingual speakers in Iran and the USA. The recordings were transcribed and coded for the five meta-pragmatic constraints of FAITH, FACE, SOLIDARITY, POWER and PERSPECTIVE proposed by Bhatt and Bolonyai.
The results reveal that despite overwhelming similarities in Azeri communities in the USA and Iran, the difference in their sociolinguistic grammars are significant, resulting from the interaction of SOLIDARTY and POWER. Crucially, in the diaspora context, SOLIDARITY outranks POWER, but in the indigenous context POWER outranks SOLIDARITY. I argue that this ranking difference between the two sociolinguistic grammars pertains to the practices that offer the profit of distinction (Bourdieu, 1991): in the diaspora context it is the solidarity function, accomplished by switching to Azeri and/or avoiding POWER switches, whereas in the indigenous context it is the differentiation function, in terms of status/power, accomplished through switching to English/Farsi.
A rather favorable consequence of the approach to code-switching I have adopted is that it allows us to capture the precise micro-discursive changes that are effected by mobility and displacement.
The theoretical approach followed in this study has implications for a sociolinguistic theory of mobility; that changes in sociolinguistic behavior under movement (diaspora) are, in fact, predictable: I argue that the enhancement of the value of solidarity vis-à-vis power as a result of migration is a predictable sociolinguistic behavior similar to other diasporic communal activities.
This article proposes the "scalpel model," a new model of third and additional language (L3/Ln) acquisition. The model aims to identify and examine what happens beyond the initial state of acquisition and what factors may influence change from one state of knowledge to another.
The article briefly examines the currently proposed hypotheses and models and evaluates the existing evidence for their predictions. It highlights several cognitive and experiential factors affecting crosslinguistic influence that are not taken into account by the current models. These factors include: structural linguistic complexity; misleading input or lack of clear unambiguous evidence for some properties or constructions; construction frequency in the target L3; and prevalent language activation or use.
Findings of recently published research are discussed in support of the scalpel model. In particular, findings of differential learnability of properties within the same groups of learners suggest that L1 or L2 transfer happens property by property and is influenced by diverse factors.
The scalpel model explicitly argues that wholesale transfer of one of the previously acquired languages does not happen at the initial stages of acquisition because it is not necessary. It also argues that transfer can be from the L1 or the L2 or both, but it is not only facilitative.
The new model increases the explanatory coverage of the current experimental findings on how the L3/Ln linguistic representations develop.
The model emphasizes the importance of the cognitive, experiential, and linguistic influences on the L3/Ln beyond transfer from the L1 or L2. Thus, it aligns L3/Ln acquisition with current debates within L2 acquisition theory.
in this introduction we situate the seven articles in this special issue in terms of the connections between their themes and their individual contributions to the field of third language acquisition (L3A): new theoretical models, innovative methodologies, an epistemological commentary and new perspectives related to multilingual processing and cognitive function.
we discuss important and often overlooked differences between bi- and multilingualism in the context of second language versus third or further language acquisition. We also provide a brief historical overview of the relatively young field of L3A and outline the three current models of linguistic transfer in L3 morphosyntax. Finally, we approach the issues of methodology, psychological complexity and cognitive implications that are discussed in some of these papers.
the diversity of topics in these articles endows the issue with a broad approach to the field of L3A, while individual articles offer a narrow focus on specific theoretical and methodological issues.
this special issue provides an accurate portrayal of the current interest in, and rapid expansion of, multilingualism within linguistic and psycholinguistic approaches.
Research on the language of heritage speakers has shown that in situations of societal bilingualism the functionally restricted language evidences the simplification of some grammatical domains. A frequent question is whether this stage of grammatical simplification is due to incomplete or interrupted acquisition in the early years of a bilingual’s life, or a result of processes of attrition of acquired knowledge of the underused language. This article considers the issue of incompleteness through an examination of the relationship between bilingual children’s developing grammars and the more or less changed bilingual systems of adult second and third generation immigrants ("heritage speakers") in the USA.
The issue of incompleteness is examined in two corpora: (1) Recordings of 50 Spanish-English adult Mexican-American bilinguals; and (2) Longitudinal data obtained during the first six years of life of two Spanish-English bilingual siblings.
Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the grammar of subjects, verbal clitics, and verb tenses of the Spanish of the bilinguals under study.
The outcome of reduced exposure and production of a minority language in simultaneous bilingual acquisition reflects the incomplete acquisition by age 6;0 of some aspects of the input language. The bilingual siblings’ unequal control of the minority language is shown to parallel the range of proficiencies identified across the adult heritage speakers.
Some linguists argue that heritage speakers’ grammars are less restrictive or "different" in some respects but not incomplete. In contrast, this article demonstrates that at least some of the reduced grammars of heritage speakers result from a halted process of acquisition in the early years of life. Furthermore, while difference is not an explanatory construct, incomplete acquisition due to interrupted development caused by restricted exposure and production offers an explanation for the range of proficiencies attested among adult heritage speakers.
Japanese speakers are known to perceive "illusory vowels" within consonant clusters illicit in their language. The present study examines how this perceptual vowel epenthesis is affected by first language (L1) processes (restoration of vowels devoiced through Japanese high vowel devoicing), L1 representations (loanword representations in Japanese speakers’ lexicons), and proficiency in English.
The participants judged the presence or absence of a mora (e.g., ム /mu/) in an auditorily presented English word (e.g., homesick). The 40 test items contained a heterosyllabic consonant cluster with four different voicing patterns to examine whether the vowel restoration process is related to vowel epenthesis. Twenty of the test items are frequently used as loanwords in Japanese, meaning that they are stored in the L1 lexicon with a vowel inserted inside the consonant cluster (e.g., /hoom
The vowel epenthesis rates and reaction times (RTs) were obtained from 14 introductory learners, 15 intermediate learners, and 19 native speakers.
The results show the main effects of Voice, Loanword Representation, and Proficiency, as well as the interaction among the three factors. Negative correlations between vowel epenthesis rates and RTs were also observed for the learners. The results indicate differential effects of vowel restoration and loanwords on perceptual epenthesis by learners of different proficiency levels.
The present study was one of the first attempts to test the relation between proficiency and perceptual vowel epenthesis using real English words.
The findings demonstrate the robustness of L1 processes and representations in second language perception while substantiating the existing argument for early vowel epenthesis. They also raise questions regarding the effects of training and the role of native speaker input.
This paper integrates research on child simultaneous bilingual acquisition more directly into the heritage language acquisition literature. The child simultaneous bilingual literature mostly focuses on development in childhood, whereas heritage speakers are often tested at an endstate in adulthood. However, insights from child simultaneous bilingual acquisition must be considered in heritage language acquisition theorizing precisely because many heritage speakers demonstrate the adult outcomes of child simultaneous bilingual acquisition. Data from child simultaneous bilingual acquisition raises serious questions for the construct of incomplete acquisition, a term broadly used in heritage language acquisition studies to describe almost any difference heritage speakers display from baseline controls (usually monolinguals). We offer an epistemological discussion related to incomplete acquisition, highlighting the descriptive and theoretical inaccuracy of the term. We focus our discussion on two of several possible causal factors that contribute to variable competence outcomes in adult heritage speakers: input and formal instruction in the heritage language. We conclude by offering alternative terminology for heritage speaker outcomes.
Many early Spanish-English bilingual speakers in the USA learn Spanish as their first language at home and English in school. This paper seeks to elucidate whether these speakers develop a separate phonological system for English and, if so, the role of primary and secondary cues in the development of the second language (L2) system.
The phonetic realization of the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, /k/ is analyzed among three groups: early Spanish-English bilinguals; L1 English speakers who are late learners of Spanish; and L1 Spanish speakers who are late learners of English. The participants (N = 15) engaged in a reading task and a conversation task in each language during a single recording session.
1578 tokens of /p/, /t/, /k/ were extracted and analyzed using acoustic software. Voice onset time in milliseconds and center of gravity in Hertz were analyzed, and monofactorial and multifactorial analyses were performed to determine the role of linguistic background.
Evidence is found of two phonological systems among early bilingual speakers, with varying degrees of assimilation to the phonological systems of the native speakers of each language.
We argue that early bilinguals construct their L2 system of /p/, /t/, /k/ in English based on the primary cue of voice onset time rather than the secondary cue of center of gravity, as they are accustomed to noticing differences in voice onset time in Spanish and because the center of gravity of /p/, /t/, /k/ in English is more variable than voice onset time, and therefore represents a more variable and less predictable cue for early bilinguals as they construct their L2 system.
This paper contributes to the literature on the construction of phonological systems and to research detailing the speech of early Spanish-English bilinguals.
In the present study, we investigated whether Moroccan- and Turkish-heritage children living in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, acquire new Dutch vocabulary to the same extent when they are provided with exactly the same type of language input. Turkish-heritage children seem to have significantly lower language proficiency in Dutch, compared to their Moroccan-heritage peers. Previous studies have shown that existing language skills in the second language can affect sequential bilingual children’s vocabulary acquisition in the second language considerably.
The novel word learning of Moroccan- and Turkish-heritage six-year-olds (N = 52) was investigated by means of four dynamic storytelling sessions in which six new object labels and six new action words were incorporated.
The children’s conceptual and linguistic knowledge of the novel words was extensively tested. Six analyses of covariance were conducted, with origin as a between-subjects factor and proficiency in Dutch as a covariate.
Our findings indicate that Turkish- and Moroccan-heritage children acquired the novel words to almost the same extent when their prior language proficiency in Dutch was taken into account. However, Moroccan-heritage children still outperformed their Turkish-heritage peers, producing the novel object labels.
For this study, we used a methodology specifically developed for this age group. In addition, we statistically controlled for the children’s initial proficiency in Dutch, in order to get a better insight in the actual learning processes of new Dutch vocabulary of Moroccan- and Turkish-heritage children.
Our outcome suggests that initial language proficiency in Dutch is an important predictor of novel vocabulary learning. Furthermore, we argue that linguistic properties of the children’s first language may play a role in second language acquisition, suggesting that a different approach to the stimulation of second language (vocabulary) acquisition in minority children of different ethnic origin may be necessary.
Over the past decade in particular, formal linguistic work within L3 acquisition has concentrated on hypothesizing and empirically determining the source of transfer from previous languages—L1, L2 or both—in L3 grammatical representations. In view of the progressive concern with more advanced stages, we aim to show that focusing on L3 initial stages should be one continued priority of the field, even—or especially—if the field is ready to shift towards modeling L3 development and ultimate attainment.
We argue that L3 learnability is significantly impacted by initial stages transfer, as such forms the basis of the initial L3 interlanguage. To illustrate our point, the insights from studies using initial and intermediary stages L3 data are discussed in light of developmental predictions that derive from the initial stages models.
Despite a shared desire to understand the process of L3 acquisition in whole, inclusive of offering developmental L3 theories, we argue that the field does not yet have—although is ever closer to—the data basis needed to effectively do so.
This article seeks to convince the readership of the need for conservatism in L3 acquisition theory building, whereby offering a framework on how and why we can most effectively build on the accumulated knowledge of the L3 initial stages in order to make significant, steady progress.
The arguments exposed here are meant to provide an epistemological base for a tenable framework of formal approaches to L3 interlanguage development and, eventually, ultimate attainment.
The main goal of the present study is to investigate effects of crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition by simultaneous bilinguals. We address the following research questions: Do both languages contribute to crosslinguistic influence in third language acquisition, or is one of them chosen as the sole source of influence? Is crosslinguistic influence always from the typologically more similar language? Is crosslinguistic influence always facilitative, or can it also be non-facilitative?
The paper reports on a grammaticality judgment task with two word order conditions, both related to verb movement (verb-second in Norwegian and subject-auxiliary inversion in English).
An experiment was carried out with three groups of 11-14-year-old participants, Norwegian-Russian bilinguals (n=22), Norwegian-speaking monolinguals (n=46), and Russian-speaking monolinguals (n=31). The data were analyzed using a generalized linear mixed effects logistic regression allowing us to estimate the effects of condition (Adv-V, Aux-S), language (Norwegian, Norwegian-Russian, Russian) and their interaction on the correctness of judgments.
The analysis reveals that while L1 Norwegian children over-accept ungrammatical sentences in English with a word order that reflects verb movement (V2), bilingual Norwegian-Russian children notice these errors significantly more often, just like L1 Russians. At the same time, the bilinguals score lower than L1 Russian children on grammatical trials, suggesting the presence of non-facilitative influence from Norwegian.
This study argues for the Linguistic Proximity Model, which proposes incremental property-by-property learning and allows for both facilitative and non-facilitative influence from one or both of the previously acquired languages.
The Linguistic Proximity Model and supporting experimental data contribute to existing models in third language acquisition by indicating that not just typological proximity but also structural similarity at an abstract level should be considered an important factor in third language acquisition.
This study investigated whether language-specific syllable type frequency and complexity exerted cross-language influence on Spanish–English bilingual children’s acquisition of syllable structure.
We compared the accuracy of bilingual and monolingual children’s singleton coda and onset cluster productions from Spanish and English single words elicited via a picture-naming task. Task stimuli provided multiple opportunities to produce all possible singleton coda and onset cluster types in each language.
Ten typically developing Spanish–English bilingual children (ages: 2;01–4;08) completed the task in each language. Five Spanish and 12 English age-matched monolingual peers completed the same task in their respective languages. Data were analyzed using mixed effects logistic regression. Analyses compared bilinguals’ Spanish and English singleton coda and onset cluster production accuracy rates to those of monolinguals.
Our results indicate that interaction occurred in bilinguals’ syllable structure acquisition in both languages. Bilinguals’ acquisition of singleton codas was accelerated relative to monolinguals’ in Spanish. Furthermore, bilinguals’ acquisition of complex onsets was accelerated in both Spanish and English. Results did not suggest that bilinguals’ acquisition of English singleton codas was delayed.
This is the first study to show that exposure to patterns of linguistic complexity specific to each language can accelerate bilinguals’ acquisition of phonological structure in both languages.
Our findings demonstrate that cross-language differences in complexity influence how interaction appears during bilinguals’ phonological acquisition, and suggest further investigation regarding the influence of frequency.
In the present study, we investigated whether Moroccan- and Turkish-heritage children living in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Flanders, acquire new Dutch vocabulary to the same extent when they are provided with exactly the same type of language input. Turkish-heritage children seem to have significant lower language proficiency in Dutch, compared with their Moroccan-heritage peers. Previous studies have shown that existing language skills in the second language can affect sequential bilingual children’s vocabulary acquisition in the second language considerably.
The novel word learning of Moroccan- and Turkish-heritage 6-year-olds (N = 52) was investigated by means of four dynamic storytelling sessions in which six new object labels and six new action words were incorporated.
The children’s conceptual and linguistic knowledge of the novel words was extensively tested. Six analyses of covariance were conducted, with origin as a between-subjects factor and proficiency in Dutch as a covariate.
Our findings indicate that Turkish- and Moroccan-heritage children acquired the novel words to almost the same extent when their prior language proficiency in Dutch was taken into account. However, Moroccan-heritage children still outperformed their Turkish-heritage peers producing the novel object labels.
For this study, we used a methodology specifically developed for this age group. In addition, we statistically controlled for the children’s initial proficiency in Dutch, in order to get a better insight in the actual learning processes of new Dutch vocabulary of Moroccan- and Turkish-heritage children.
Our outcome suggests that initial language proficiency in Dutch is an important predictor of novel vocabulary learning. Furthermore, we argue that linguistic properties of the children’s first language may play a role in second language acquisition, suggesting that a different approach to the stimulation of second language (vocabulary) acquisition in minority children of different ethnic origin may be necessary.
Recent research has provided support for linguistic coactivation, the view that the two languages of a bilingual are simultaneously active. Importantly, even if the system is fundamentally nonselective, the two languages of a bilingual can be activated to different degrees. The main contribution of the present paper is to empirically test what "different degrees of activation" really means. Differences could emerge in the timing or the magnitude of language activation.
Most of the research to date has been based on experiments using reaction times. In the present experiment participants responded to a bilingual Stroop task using a computer mouse. We argue that mouse tracking can provide new insights into the temporal dynamics of cognitive processes.
We used a series of t-tests to analyze participants’ mouse trajectories (n = 20). We compared the x-coordinates over time for each of the four experimental conditions (Congruent-Within, Congruent-Between, Incongruent-Within, Incongruent-Between) with the x-coordinates over time for the control trajectory.
Differences in the timing, but not the magnitude, of interference are at the root of the differential effects within and between languages. Within-language interference emerged 80 ms earlier than between-language interference.
To our knowledge, the current experiment is the first to use the dynamic mouse-tracking paradigm to compare the time course of the two languages of a bilingual participant.
The mouse-tracking paradigm can help to distinguish between the timing and the magnitude of interference, informing current theories of the bilingual mind.
The study aims at conducting a comprehensive examination of the initial stages of narrative development in both languages of typically developing Norwegian-Russian simultaneous bilinguals. The objective of the study was to investigate whether narrative structure (macrostructure) and narrative productivity (microstructure) are language-dependent abilities (cf. The Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis) and to explore language exposure effects on the narrative composites.
The Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives was used to assess narrative comprehension and production in preschool Norwegian-Russian children (N = 16, M = 4;6) as well as in Norwegian- (N = 16, M = 4;5) and Russian monolinguals (N = 16, M = 4;5).
Multiple regression and correlation analysis was conducted to establish the relationship between the narrative macro- and microstructure in bilinguals and through the bilingual–monolingual comparison. In addition, more detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis at each level was performed. Individual bilingual children’s data were also considered.
Overall the comparison of the narrative macro- and microstructure in the two languages of bilinguals supports the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis. Norwegian-Russian children’s ability to compose and especially understand a story is equally developed in both languages. Exposure effects revealing the superiority of Norwegian, the majority language, are found primarily for microstructure measures. The complete picture is achieved through the bilingual–monolingual comparison, which suggests that narrative abilities in the minority language are sensitive to the amount of exposure and their acquisition can be vulnerable.
The study provides new evidence on bilinguals’ narrative abilities in a previously unstudied language combination. The new evidence contributes to better understanding of the initial stages of narrative development in typically developing simultaneous bilinguals and establishing the norms for the relevant abilities. Importantly, the study highlights the importance of examining language data in both languages of a bilingual child.
The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of age of acquisition on verbal working memory (WM) in bilinguals. In light of previous studies that have found a bilingual advantage on non-verbal WM and less consistently on verbal WM, we included participants with native-like second language (L2) proficiency who had benefited from several years of dual language use and who did not differ from the monolinguals in terms of socioeconomic status in order to control for proficiency. Very few studies have looked at bilinguals’ performance on measures of both verbal and non-verbal memory, making it difficult to know how bilingualism influences both types of abilities in the same participants. Therefore, we also compared the groups on non-verbal WM.
Simultaneous bilingual, early successive bilinguals, and late successive bilinguals were compared with monolingual English speakers. All bilingual participants were selected using three different criteria: self-assessment ratings of English abilities, ratings of nativelikeness by a native English speaker, and scores on a L2 Cloze test. The groups did not differ significantly with respect to their L2 proficiency, or on measures of general cognitive ability.
Fifteen simultaneous bilinguals were compared with 15 early successive bilinguals and 15 late successive bilinguals who acquired English between 4–6 years of age and 7–15 years of age, respectively. The bilinguals were compared with 15 English-speaking monolinguals. Participants were compared using verbal and non-verbal short-term memory and WM tests.
All bilingual groups performed significantly better than the monolinguals on tests of verbal and non-verbal WM, thus supporting a bilingual advantage. The early and late successive bilinguals scored significantly lower than the simultaneous bilinguals, suggesting an age-of-acquisition effect among the bilinguals.
This is the first study to find a bilingual advantage on verbal WM in adults, but also the first study to report an age-of-acquisition effect in groups of bilingual adults carefully selected for their nativelikeness in the L2.
The objectives of the present research were to examine the cognitive consequences of trilingualism and explain them relative to the cognitive consequences of bilingualism.
A comparison of cognitive abilities in trilinguals and bilinguals was conducted. In addition, we proposed a cognitive plasticity framework to account for cognitive differences and similarities between trilinguals and bilinguals.
Three aspects of cognition were analyzed: (1) cognitive reserve in older adults, as measured by age of onset of Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment; (2) inhibitory control in children and younger adults, as measured by response times on behavioral Simon and flanker tasks; and (3) memory generalization in infants and toddlers, as measured by accuracy on behavioral deferred imitation tasks. Results were considered within a framework of cognitive plasticity, which took into account several factors that may affect plasticity including the age of learning a third language and the extent to which additional cognitive resources are needed to learn the third language.
A mixed pattern of results was observed. In some cases, such as cognitive reserve in older adults, trilinguals showed larger advantages than did bilinguals. On other measures, for example inhibitory control in children and younger adults, trilinguals were found to exhibit the same advantages as bilinguals. In still other cases, such as memory generalization in infants and toddlers, trilinguals did not demonstrate the advantages seen in bilinguals.
This study is the first comprehensive analysis of how learning a third language affects the cognitive abilities that are modified by bilingual experience, and the first to propose a cognitive plasticity framework that can explain and predict trilingual-bilingual differences.
This research shows that the cognitive consequences of trilingualism are not simply an extension of bilingualism’s effects; rather, trilingualism has distinct consequences, with theoretical implications for our understanding of linguistic and cognitive processes and their plasticity, as well as applied-science implications for using second and third language learning in educational and rehabilitative contexts to foster successful cognitive development and aging.
The aim of this paper is to examine the role of language dominance in loanword phonology. It is investigated how onset clusters in loanwords are integrated into Turkish by two groups: English-Turkish bilinguals in Turkey and Swedish-Turkish bilinguals in Sweden. It is hypothesised that the bilinguals in Sweden will display significantly higher rates of cluster adoption because Turkish is not the dominant language there.
The data were collected through an oral loanword elicitation task, a text recitation task in the second languages and a questionnaire on language proficiency and use.
The study had 53 participants (24 in Turkey and 29 in Sweden). The material consisted of 29 loanwords from English and French, and of 50 structurally comparable words in the bilinguals’ second languages. The data were analysed auditively by the author and subjected to an interrater reliability test.
The results confirmed the hypothesis as the bilinguals in Sweden displayed significantly higher cluster adoption rates. The difference between the groups’ medians was 36.5 percentage points. Furthermore, it was shown that in individual speakers the combination of accurate second-language pronunciation, and clearly higher proficiency in the second language (corresponding to the donor language) compared to the L1 (i.e. the recipient language) guaranteed very high cluster adoption rates.
This paper provides the first rigorous quantitative proof for the theoretical assumption that accurate pronunciation is not sufficient for structural adoption in loanword phonology but needs to be complemented with sociolinguistic variables. Furthermore, it demonstrates in greater detail than before how societal and individual dominance are connected and through which channels they impact loanword integration.
Self-reported relative proficiency in the donor language was shown to be a powerful predictor of the sociolinguistic incentive to adopt and could therefore be used as a quick and reliable alternative to elaborate and time-consuming attitude investigations in loanword phonology.
We investigate the extent to which L1 versus adult L2 phonological systems resist influence from an L3. We test the Phonological Permeability Hypothesis (Cabrelli Amaro & Rothman, 2010), which states that adult L2 phonological systems are different from L1 systems with regards to instability.
To isolate the variable of age of acquisition, we examined the acquisition of L3 Brazilian Portuguese (BP) by two types of sequential bilinguals: L1 English/L2 Spanish, L1 Spanish/L2 English. We tested perception via a forced-choice goodness task and production via a delayed repetition task. First, we assessed acquisition of the phonological property in BP (in this case, word-final vowel reduction, and excluded learners’ data that was not target-like in BP. We then tested the learners’ Spanish to determine the level of BP influence.
Perception data were analyzed for accuracy and reaction time. Production data were analyzed acoustically for formant structure, duration, and intensity. We compared L1 English/L2 Spanish data (n=15) with L1 Spanish/L2 English data (n=8), and with Spanish (n=11) and BP controls (n=14).
While data from the preference task do not signal instability of perception for early or late acquirers of Spanish, L2 Spanish production data for vowel height measured differs from the L1 Spanish and Spanish control data. We take this as preliminary support for our hypothesis.
By comparing L1 and L2 vulnerability to L3 influence, this study takes a novel approach to the debate over the constitution of phonological systems acquired in childhood versus in adulthood.
The novel methodology implemented, together with these empirical findings, will afford further development of a research program dedicated to L3 bidirectional influence and the study of what L3 acquisition can tell us about language acquisition more generally.
The aim of this article is to introduce a case of syntactic borrowing. I test the hypothesis that the uses of volitional forms (optative, imperative, hortative and jussive) in complement clauses of the verbs of wish and in purpose clauses in East Caucasian languages evolve under the influence of Azerbaijanian.
The data of 13 languages are considered in the paper. To prove that shared features are contact-induced, two control languages are included in the sample. Archi belongs to the same genetic group as the languages that use volitionals in subordinate clauses, but is exposed to Azerbaijanian to a lesser extent. Axaxdr Akhvakh belongs to another group, but has strong contacts with Azerbaijanian due to recent migration.
A survey shows that volitionals are used in subordinate clauses most extensively in those languages whose speakers exhibit a high level of bilingualism in Azerbaijanian, and where the contact has been longer. I assume that there is a hierarchy of borrowability of subordinate constructions involving volitionals.
Although the influence of Turkic languages on the languages of the Caucasus in the domain of syntax has been previously discussed, the usage of volitionals in subordinate clauses has not.
It is acknowledged that social factors play an important role in shaping the linguistic consequences of contact. However, evidence of the correspondence between social factors and structural outcomes of language contact is still very scarce. The relevance of two social factors is shown in this paper: the ratio of bilingual speakers and the duration of contact.
I advance the hypothesis that connects the borrowability of particular constructions to their typological frequency, but the typology of subordinate uses of volitionals is not well enough investigated to make final conclusions.
The aim of this study is to test Macswan’s ((1999). A minimalist approach to intrasentential code switching. New York, NY: Garland; (2000). The architecture of the bilingual language faculty: Evidence from intrasentential code-switching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 37–54; (2005). Codeswitching and generative grammar: A critique of the MLF model and some remarks on "modified minimalism". Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8, 1–22.) PF Disjunction Theorem (PFDT), which was proposed based on Chomsky’s ((1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.) minimalist programme, to answer the following question: Is code-switching (CS) behaviour governed by CS-specific grammar or an innate mechanism that produces monolingual and bilingual utterances in our language faculty?
A quantitative approach was adopted to test the PFDT with the Southern Min/Mandarin CS data.
811 lexical items extracted from 343 bilingual clauses in my Southern Min/Mandarin CS corpus, and almost no violation against this model (i.e., a word-internal switch) was found, except one example that was regarded as the informant’s slip of tongue.
The results of this study confirm the prediction of the PFDT that phonological systems cannot be mixed within a word.
Although the morphosyntactic structures and in some cases the pronunciations of morphemes are identical, tonal differences of these two languages still prohibit word-internal switches.
This study thus supports the PFDT and argues that CS behaviour is governed by a single innate mechanism that governs both monolingual and bilingual language production and that the so-called CS-specific grammar/mechanism is not necessary.
Is there a single trajectory to third-language (L3) communicative proficiency in proficient, adult bilingual speakers? Parsimony favours such a possibility but in this theoretical paper we argue that multiple trajectories will be the norm. We focus on the processes of language control. These processes mediate the initial transfer of syntactic forms, entrain processes that change the language network and govern the selection of L3 syntactic structures and lexical items. Theoretical models of initial transfer differ in terms of their demands on top-down and bottom-up processes of language control. L3 learning, though, requires both types of process, yielding potential variability in the syntactic structures that populate the landscape of transfer. A language network can capture that landscape by tagging any existing structure (whether from the first language or from the second language) for use in the L3 by linking it to a L3 language node. Representational change incurs further processing costs because speakers must select L3 syntactic forms and lexical items in the face of competition. In line with earlier research, we propose that top-down control processes external to the language network help select outputs for speech production but these processes themselves must adapt to the demands of selecting amongst three rather than two languages. In a final section we review the nature of variability in language control processes and the processes they entrain. Such variability strongly predicts multiple trajectories to L3 proficiency. Exploring the nature of such variety, using converging methods in longitudinal designs, provides an opportunity for theoretical and practical advance.
This study aims to redress the paucity of research on the semantics of loanwords, by extending and empirically testing Backus’s ((2001). The role of semantic specificity in insertional codeswitching: Evidence from Dutch-Turkish. Jacobson, Rodolfo (Hg): Codeswitching Worldwide. Bd, 2, 125–154) Specificity Hypothesis – ‘Embedded language elements in code-switching have a high degree of semantic specificity’ (p. 128).
Adopting a concept-based approach to examine loanwords in a large, reliable corpus, the study pursues the following question: Do loanwords have a high degree of semantic specificity relative to their receiving-language equivalents? Specificity is operationalized as an entropy measure of the target word’s environment, the assumption being that more specific words have less variety in their surrounding context.
To test this hypothesis, Anglicisms in a 24-million-word newspaper corpus of Argentine Spanish were processed in three stages: detecting loanwords, selecting semantic equivalents, and measuring specificity.
A Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test revealed that loanwords receive significantly lower entropy scores, that is, they are more specific than their Spanish equivalents. The results suggest a possible motive for adopting loanwords when terms already exist in the source language, namely, to utilize words that provide more nuanced meaning.
Methodologically, this study offers innovative applications of computational methods to loanword research, employing a distributional model to measure entropy. Theoretically, it addresses an underrepresented aspect of loanword adoption, semantics, by extending Backus’s hypothesis to loanwords and increasing its scope to data often viewed as ‘monolingual’.
The conclusions offer novel perspectives on loanwords with existing semantic equivalents, often viewed as ‘unnecessary’ when compared to loanwords that introduce new concepts into the recipient language (e.g. blog). With the notion of specificity, we may understand these loanwords as disruptors to the semantic system of the recipient language, dividing up the semantic space formerly occupied solely by the native equivalent, thus increasing the level of nuance expressed in the original concept.
This study aimed to examine whether the phonological information in the non-target language is activated and its influence on bilingual processing.
Using the Stroop paradigm, Mandarin-English bilinguals named the ink color of Chinese characters in English in Experiment 1 and named the Chinese characters in addition to the color naming in English in Experiment 2. Twenty-four participants were recruited in each experiment. In both experiments, the visual stimuli included color characters (e.g. 红, hong2, red), homophones of the color characters (e.g. 洪, hong2, flood), characters that only shared the same syllable segment with the color characters (S+T-, e.g. , hong1, boom), characters that shared the same tone but differed in segments with the color characters (S-T+, e.g. 瓶, ping2, bottle), and neutral characters (e.g. , qian1, leading through).
Planned t-tests were conducted in which participants’ naming accuracy rate and naming latency in each phonological condition were compared with the neutral condition.
Experiment 1 only showed the classic Stroop effect in the color character condition. In Experiment 2, in addition to the classic Stroop effect, the congruent homophone condition (e.g. 洪 in red) showed a significant Stroop interference effect. These results suggested that for bilingual speakers with different scripts, phonological information in the non-target language may not be automatically activated even though the written words in the non-target language were visually presented. However, if the phonological information of the non-target language is activated in advance, it could lead to competition between the two languages, likely at both the phonological and lemma levels.
This study is among the first to investigate whether the translation of a word is phonologically encoded in bilinguals using the Stroop paradigm. The findings improve our understanding of the underlying mechanism of bilingual processing.
The aim was to identify which criteria children use to decide on the category membership of native and non-native vowels, and to get insight into the organization of phonological representations in the bilingual mind.
The study consisted of two cross-language mispronunciation detection tasks in which L2 vowels were inserted into L1 words and vice versa. In Experiment 1, 10- to 12-year-old Dutch-speaking children were presented with Dutch words which were either pronounced with the target Dutch vowel or with an English vowel inserted in the Dutch consonantal frame. Experiment 2 was a mirror of the first, with English words which were pronounced "correctly" or which were "mispronounced" with a Dutch vowel.
Analyses focused on extent to which child and adult listeners accepted substitutions of Dutch vowels by English ones, and vice versa.
The results of Experiment 1 revealed that between the age of ten and twelve children have well-established phonological vowel categories in their native language. However, Experiment 2 showed that in their non-native language, children tended to accept mispronounced items which involve sounds from their native language. At the same time, though, they did not fully rely on their native phonemic inventory because the children accepted most of the correctly pronounced English items.
While many studies have examined native and non-native perception by infants and adults, studies on first and second language perception of school-age children are rare. This study adds to the body of literature aimed at expanding our knowledge in this area.
The study has implications for models of the organization of the bilingual mind: while proficient adult non-native listeners generally have clearly separated sets of phonological representations for their two languages, for non-proficient child learners the L1 phonology still exerts a strong influence on the L2 phonology.
This paper investigates the word order and adjectival agreement patterns in French-Dutch codeswitched Determiner Phrases (DPs). It examines the predictions made by two theoretical points of view: the approach by MacSwan (2009) within the Minimalist Program (MP) and the Matrix Language Framework (MLF) (Myers-Scotton & Jake, 2009).
The predictions of these frameworks are compared to data gathered in a grammaticality judgment task. In total, 120 codeswitched sentences were presented aurally to participants, who were asked to rate the sentences on a three-point scale.
While some previous work on word order within codeswitched DP’s exists, this paper is the first study investigating the adjectival agreement patterns in codeswitching.
Statistical analysis of the data showed that the MacSwan approach is a better predictor for the grammaticality judgments, as sentences predicted to be grammatical by the MP were rated higher than sentences predicted to be ungrammatical by the same model. This difference was statistically significant. There was no significant difference in rating for the predictions of the MLF.
The results of the judgment task in combination with the results of previous research on codeswitching highlight the importance of a combination of data from both naturalistic and experimental settings.
The predictions of the Minimalist approach have the upper hand over the predictions of the MLF. However, it remains is important to integrate results from other experimental methodologies, such as naturalistic data and results from psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic studies.
The aim of this study is to show how different English single content morphemes, in particular nouns and adjectives, occur in the Persian structure by applying the Matrix Language Frame and 4M models.
The data collection in the present study includes tape-recordings of spontaneous conversations involving 12 Persian–English bilingual speakers at a public university in Malaysia. The IELTS participants’ scores were 6.0 or higher and they were between 20 and 40 years old.
Qualitatively, 8 hours of tape-recorded conversations were transcribed and coded carefully according to the Canonical Trilinear Representation. Quantitatively, the English content morphemes, especially nouns and adjectives, were analysed syntactically and morphosyntactically to show how they grammatically occur in the bilingual complementiser phrases.
The findings of this study reveal that code-switching was permissible even when it led to structural dissimilarity. Wherever it was required by a Persian principle, the inserted English elements, particularly nouns and adjectives, received different Persian markers. They may also appear without any Persian marker where required by the Persian grammar. Moreover, the data supported the Matrix Language Frame and 4M models’ principles, Morpheme order principle and System morpheme principle, and no counterexample appeared against the mentioned models.
There are few studies on code-switching between Persian and English that focus on typological differences between the languages involved and the use of the Matrix Language Frame model and 4M model. Thus, the present study contributes knowledge in the field of code-switching between Persian and English and discusses how English single content morphemes, particularly nouns and adjectives, occur in the Persian structure by applying both the Matrix Language Frame model and 4M model as references.
This study investigates how three multilingual scholars enact translingual negotiation strategies in a variety of contexts. The purpose of the study is to identify how translingual oral and written literacy practices serve as rhetorical tools of language self-awareness, identity construction, and negotiations of language difference.
The objectives of the study are achieved by conducting a textual analysis of three primarily oral genres mediated by literate practices. The genres include: a plenary address, naturalization ceremony speech, and personal interview.
The three genres composed by multilingual scholars are analyzed using the following four translingual negotiation strategies: envoicing, recontextualization, interactional, and entextualization.
The key findings of the research reveal the important relationship between oral and written practices, particularly how oral language practices serve as rhetorical resources that help multilingual writers become aware of audience and language negotiations. This study also reveals the potential of using translingual strategies in the writing classroom to enhance students’ rhetorical self-awareness of language difference in diverse genres and contexts.
While scholarship in literacy and composition studies has focused on and recognized how the relationship between oral and written practices shape identities and communities, less attention is given to how multilingual speakers/writers in primarily oral genres mediated by literate practices use rhetorical strategies to shape their translingual identities and engage audience uptake of their translingual strategies.
The significance and implications of this study focus on using translingual strategies as rhetorical tools to teach writing, language awareness, and analysis of discourse.
This study investigates wh-in-situ transfer for sequential bilingual children whose first language (L1) is Korean and early second language (L2) is English. Previous research has shown evidence that bilingual children who speak one in-situ language and one wh-movement language often show transfer from the dominant language to the weaker language, and from the in-situ language to the wh-movement language. The purpose of this study is to explore whether wh-in-situ is transferred to English, under the influence of Korean. The research questions are as follows: Do K-E bilingual children produce more wh-in-situ questions in English than their monolingual counterparts? If so, do these wh-in-situ questions appear in illicit constructions?
The design of this study is longitudinal in nature, in order to best capture a holistic picture of the children’s productions of English over time. Seven K-E children spanning ages 2;4 to 7;11 were observed in their spontaneous play interactions over approximately two years.
The data consists of 120 recordings, which were transcribed and coded in ELAN. Monolingual comparison data were obtained from the CHILDES database.
Results show no instances of wh-in-situ in the children’s English; the bilingual children pattern similarly to English-monolingual children in wh-in-situ production. No direct influence from Korean to English for wh-in-situ formation was found, contrary to what has been found in studies with other language pairs.
This paper provides new evidence from a language pairing that has not been previously explored for crosslinguistic influence of wh-in-situ questions.
The findings suggest that a dominance approach or structural complexity approach to predicting crosslinguistic influence for bilingual speakers may not fully capture the conditions for such influence to occur and may require some modification.
This study aims to investigate second language (L2) learnability in article acquisition from a feature-based contrastive approach by examining L1-Korean speakers’ comprehension of different types of definites in L2-English: anaphoric and non-anaphoric definites. English does not morphologically distinguish different kinds of definites but some languages do (e.g., Fering) (Schwarz, 2013). Korean, an article-less language, differentiates between the two types of definites by marking only one type (i.e., anaphoric) with the demonstrative ku ‘that’ (Chang, 2009). That is, the English definite article ‘the’ encodes [+definite, ±anaphoric] and the Korean demonstrative ‘ku’ encodes [+definite, +anaphoric]. Within the feature reassembly model (Lardiere, 2009), this difference in feature combinations between Korean and English is expected to influence L1-Korean learners’ interpretation of English articles.
An acceptability judgment task was used to assess L1-Korean L2-English learners (22 intermediate and 15 advanced) and 26 English native-speaker controls’ comprehension of different types of definites.
The intermediate group rated definites significantly higher than indefinites in anaphoric definite contexts but not in non-anaphoric definite contexts, indicating L1 influence. The advanced group rated definites higher than indefinites in non-bridging anaphoric contexts but not in bridging (anaphoric and non-anaphoric) contexts. This suggests that they have re-assembled the features associated with the definite article but have difficulty in accommodating unmentioned propositions for bridging definites.
These findings suggest that presupposition accommodation for bridging definites may be another hurdle in article acquisition beyond feature reassembly.
By focusing on the acquisition of the semantics of definites, exclusively, this study provides new data and information which enable us to come to a more precise and fine-grained understanding of learnability in article acquisition. Thus, the results of the study bring out new and insightful conceptual issues that open up new directions for future research on the acquisition of definiteness.
This paper offers an overview of the 4-M model from its inception, but pays special attention to how the characterization of morpheme types in the model has evolved. A new proposal is that the level at which morpheme types are "elected" in an abstract model of language production is a critical factor in predicting morpheme distribution across languages in bilingual data.
A new addition to the model, the Variable Election Hypothesis, predicts which language is likely to be the source of morphemes in certain structures in bilingual speech, based on how they are elected.
Data from available codeswitching literature illustrate the classification of morphemes according to the 4-M model and test this new hypothesis. Much of the analysis focuses on the role of Embedded Language nonfinite verb forms and the structure of mixed determiner phrases (DPs), as well as subordinators in codeswitching data.
Both the 4-M model and the Variable Election Hypothesis make predictions for the source and relative frequency of morpheme types observed in the codeswitching literature. The paper provides evidence that, in bilingual constituents in codeswitching, the frequency of certain morpheme types depends on how they are elected at an abstract level of language production.
The emphasis on the abstract nature of morphemes constitutes a new approach to studying language contact.
These predictions could also apply to other types of contact data, such as borrowing and creole development.
This study focuses on heritage speakers’ ability to use their Arabic varieties and English in the construction of narratives of personal experience. This is critical because English, Colloquial Arabic (CA), and Standard Arabic (SA) are part of the sociolinguistic reality of the families and communities in which many heritage Arabic speakers live.
The study compares and contrastes heritage speakers’ Arabic and English narratives with respect to codes, registers, and functions in the narratives.
Fifteen Arabic and 15 English narratives from five participants, fluent in Arabic and English, were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively.
The results reveal that, despite their fluency in their heritage language, respondents lack the sociolinguistic competence to socially and pragmatically deploy CA and SA appropriately in their narratives. In the Arabic narratives, respondents alternated frequently between CA and SA, but they were not always able to maintain the asymmetrical functions of CA and SA. English was used mainly as a compensation strategy, yet participants were able to integrate contextually appropriate English registers in discourse. In the English narratives, participants switched parsimoniously to Arabic for fillers and culturally specific terms and expressions. Moreover, they displayed a greater register control based on the events in their narratives.
This is one of few studies focusing on the sociolinguistic competence of heritage Arabic speakers. It is the first study to examine the distribution and functions of Arabic varieties and English in personal narratives rendered in Arabic and English.
The study indicates that a full understanding of heritage language acquisition requires an evaluation of the sociolinguistic aspects of language use. Heritage speakers are influenced by contextual factors and by the lack of a community of practice, elements that are key in understanding their sociolinguistic competence.
This study examined gender difference in the effect of post-learning positive emotion on consolidation of memory for definitions of English vocabulary.
A 2 (emotion group: neutral and positive) x 2 (gender: male and female) x 2 (emotion duration: 3 and 9 min) design was used. Participants memorized Chinese definitions of English words, took an immediate test, watched a neutral (lasting for 3 or 9 min) or positive (lasting for 3 or 9 min) video, and took a delayed memory test.
Data of male (n = 59) and female (n = 67) participants were analyzed. For evaluation of emotion induction, a 3 (time: before watching, during watching, and after watching) x 2 (emotion group: neutral and positive) x 2 (gender: male and female) x 2 (emotion duration: 3 and 9 min) was respectively conducted on pleasure and arousal ratings. For memory performance, a similar analysis of variance without time as a factor was conducted.
With a 3-min duration, positive emotion had little effect on memory consolidation. However, with a 9-min duration, positive emotion tended to impair memory consolidation for males but not for females.
Extending the literature showing females’ superiority in memory for words and pictures, this study shows that female students also have memory advantage in English vocabulary. Furthermore, this is the first study suggesting that memory consolidation of male students is more likely to be disrupted by a relatively long duration of positive emotion after learning.
The current finding on gender difference may shed new light on employing emotion as a strategy of memory intervention. There seems to be a need to keep males rather than females from post-learning positive emotion, especially when emotion duration is relatively long.
The present study focused on the performance of Chinese learners of English to investigate the activation of morpho-semantic information in the early processing of second language (L2) morphologically complex words when participants’ first language (L1) and L2 are typologically different.
We used forward masked priming paradigm to compare the priming effect in three prime conditions, semantically transparent, semantically opaque and semantically related. In Experiment 1, the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was 40 milliseconds (ms), while, In Experiment 2, the SOA was extended to 80 ms.
Reaction time and comprehension accuracy data were analysed using the linear mixed-effects model.
In Experiment 1, we only found a priming effect in the semantically transparent condition. In Experiment 2, we found a reliable priming effect in the semantically opaque condition, but not in the semantically related condition. These results suggest even Chinese learners of English whose native language is typologically different from English can employ the rule-based decomposing mechanism. The decomposition is based on the interplay of morpho-orthographic and morpho-semantic information, adding new evidence to the assumption of parallel orthography-semantics activation.
We manipulated SOAs to investigate the role of the morpho-semantic factor in the early processing of morphologically complex L2 words when participants’ L1 and L2 are typologically different.
The present study aimed to explore how varied cross-linguistic differences affect late Chinese-English learners’ on-line processing of tense and aspect in English.
We used the self-paced reading task (Experiment 1) and the eye-tracking technique (Experiment 2) to test the above question.
Reading times in Experiment 1 and first-fixation duration, and gaze time in Experiment 2 in four interested positions were analysed in R by ANOVAs and t-tests.
Both high- and low-proficiency participants showed their sensitivity to the violation of progressive, which is nearly congruent between English and Chinese. Only high-proficiency participants were sensitive to the violation of past tense, which is similar but not congruent between Chinese and English. With regard to present third person singular, which is incongruent between Chinese and English, high-proficiency participants also showed their sensitivity to its violation; however, this sensitivity is only detected by the eye-tracking method (Experiment 2). These results suggested that cross-linguistic differences affect late second language learners’ on-line processing of English tense and aspect.
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first one exploring varied cross-linguistic differences’ influence on late Chinese-English learners’ on-line processing of tense and aspect in English.
Our results provide new evidence to support the Performance Deficit Account.
This study investigates the effects of individual bilingualism and long-term language contact on monophthongal vowel productions in English and Welsh.
To this end, we recorded the Welsh and English vowel productions of two sets of Welsh-English bilinguals differing in home language use, as well as the English vowel productions of English monolinguals.
The data were analysed acoustically, with a focus on spectral and temporal properties. Comparisons were then made within each language and cross-linguistically.
The results of a cross-linguistic acoustic comparison revealed a high degree of convergence in the monophthong systems of Welsh and English, but also some language-specific categories. Interestingly, at the individual level we found no effect of linguistic experience on vowel production: the two sets of bilinguals and the English monolinguals did not differ in their realisation of English vowels, and the two sets of bilinguals did not differ in their realisation of Welsh vowels.
This is one of few studies to examine the effect of linguistic background on variation in Welsh and English bilingual speech, and the first to compare the speech of Welsh-English bilinguals and English monolinguals. More specifically, it investigates the extent to which a speaker’s home language can affect phonetic variation in a close-knit community of speakers and in a situation characterised by long-term language contact.
The findings demonstrate pervasive phonetic convergence in a language contact situation with a historical substrate. They also indicate that a homogeneous peer group with shared values can override the effects of individual linguistic experience.
The present study investigated which factors would best predict second-language (L2) fluency in a group of long-term L2 speakers of different English varieties with German as their first language.
L2 fluency was conceptualized in terms of utterance fluency for which speed, breakdown and repair fluency were distinguished.
Multiple measures of utterance fluency were applied to four-minute speech fragments originating from 102 spontaneous oral interviews. Interviewees’ ages of onset ranged from 7 to 17, whereas their ages at interview ranged from 57 to 87. Multifactorial analyses yielded significant effects of age at interview.
Whereas the mean number of silent pauses and repairs increases, syllable duration decreases. This leaves room for interpretation as to why we find an aging effect. Overall, the evidence suggests that the usual, L2 acquisition-specific factors, such as age of onset or length of residence, are no longer at play to predict L2 fluency.
To this point L2 fluency in very advanced, highly proficient L2 speakers has received little attention. The results point to the need for more research into highly proficient L2 users.
This study quantitatively explores variation in passing for a native speaker of English and also discusses speakers’ passing for a native speaker of the same dialect as the listeners, other dialects, or not passing at all and always being perceived as a non-native speaker. It also examines other factors that may influence variation in passing such as conversational setting (which has been suggested by participants’ self-reports in Piller, 2002). Thirty native-speaking listeners were presented with clips from 24 native and non-native speakers of English and were asked to guess the origin of the speaker. Passing is quantified through the number of times listeners in a perception task believed speakers to be from English-speaking countries. The results of this study suggest that passing for a native speaker of different varieties is quite common, and some speakers pass for a native speaker of another variety as an intermediate step between passing for a native speaker of the same variety and not passing at all. The speakers’ self-reports and quantitative analysis of their production also suggests that there is a considerable amount of intra-speaker variation across different conversational settings. Most studies that focus on passing have been qualitative and/or rely on self-reports (e.g. Piller, 2002), so any claims about variation in passing are not typically supported by actual linguistic production. One particular consideration that is usually omitted is the difference between passing for a native speaker of the same dialect as the listener and that of a different dialect. This study explores situational variability in passing quantitatively and also considers the trends in passing for a native speaker of different dialects. This study is an example of a fruitful combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, to explore the intersection between second language acquisition and sociolinguistics.
Studies show cross-linguistic differences in motion event encoding, such that English speakers preferentially encode manner of motion more than Spanish speakers, who preferentially encode path of motion. Focusing on native Spanish speaking children (aged 5;00–9;00) learning L2 English, we studied path and manner verb preferences during descriptions of motion stimuli, and tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by investigating categorization preferences in a non-verbal similarity judgement task of motion clip triads. Results revealed L2 influence on L1 motion event encoding, such that bilinguals used more manner verbs and fewer path verbs in their L1, under the influence of English. We found no effects of linguistic structure on non-verbal similarity judgements, and demonstrate for the first time effects of L2 on L1 lexicalization in child L2 learners in the domain of motion events. This pattern of verbal behaviour supports theories of bilingual semantic representation that postulate a merged lexico-semantic system in early bilinguals.
Bilingual children sometimes show delays relative to monolinguals on language tasks. In the present studies, we explored whether French–English bilinguals’ tense use and shift would show a developmental lag in the context of narration. In Study 1, we showed that both French and English monolinguals showed age-related changes in tense use, with preschoolers preferring the past and adults the present. A developmental lag among bilingual children could therefore take the form of prolonged use of the past tense through middle childhood. In Study 2, we observed tense use in the narratives of French–English bilingual children (8–10 years), as well as French and English monolinguals from the same age group. The bilinguals tended to use more present tense than the monolinguals. In qualitative analyses, bilinguals also used a multitude of expressive strategies, such as exclamations, repetitions and onomatopoeia, that made the stories more vivid. Taken together these results suggest that French–English bilinguals do not present developmental differences from monolinguals in tense use. Instead, they adopt an imagistic narrative style that differs from the monolinguals in multiple ways, including a greater use of the present tense. The adoption of this style might be linked to both bilingualism and a cultural preference among French–English bilinguals.
Previous research with children learning a second language (L2) has reported errors with verb inflection and cross-linguistic variation in accuracy and error patterns. However, owing to the cross-linguistic complexity and diversity of different verbal paradigms, the cross-linguistic effects on the nature of default forms has not been directly addressed in L2 acquisition studies. In the present study, we compared accuracy and error patterns in verbal agreement inflections in L2 children acquiring Dutch and Greek, keeping the children’s L1 constant (Turkish). Results showed that inflectional defaults in Greek follow universal predictions regarding the morphological underspecification of paradigms. However, the same universal predictions do not apply to the same extent to Dutch. It is argued that phonological properties of inflected forms should be taken into account to explain cross-linguistic differences in the acquisition of inflection. By systematically comparing patterns in child L2 Dutch and Greek, this study shows how universal mechanisms and target language properties work in tandem in the acquisition of inflectional paradigms.
The purpose of the present experiment was to study interpreters’ recall of spoken prose.
The prose recall of simultaneous and consecutive interpreters was compared to that of foreign language teachers and non-linguistic experts. The professional experience of participants (21–24 participants in each group) was 10 years as a aminimum. The auditory presentation of the prose passage to be recalled, divided into eleven speech sequences, resembled the working conditions of interpreters.
Transcripted prose recall recordings were analysed quantitatively through an idea unit measure and qualitatively through meaning-based expressions.
The foreign language expert groups outperformed the non-linguistic experts in both quantitative and qualitative measures. Additionally, compared to foreign language teachers, interpreters indicated a better recall of time expressions and topic sentences, as well as of complicated emotional and causal expressions. The explanation for these findings could indicate expertise-dependent tendencies: possibly a continuous practising of careful listening and the demand for a quick comprehension of the source text under the extreme time pressure of interpreters’ work leads to better results in prose recall. However, the findings can only be generalized to a limited extent because the prose passage used contained only one or two expressions of each type studied in the qualitative analysis.
The study differs from previous studies in that the memory of interpreters, and especially of consecutive interpreters, was studied for the first time with a prose recall measure.
The prose recall test revealed that the abilities of careful listening and effective comprehension of coherence and causality seem to play a significant role in explaining memory functions of simultaneous and consecutive interpreters compared to those of foreign language teachers and non-linguistic experts.
Corpus linguists are increasingly interested in applying their methodological tool box to the various areas of multilingualism. This paper gives an overview of corpus resources and presents three case studies on L2 foreign language learning that employ quantitative methods. The goal is to demonstrate that corpus-linguistic approaches further our understanding of many hot topics in learner language research, including appropriate characterizations of the L1 input and/or target norm; the adequate modeling of the intrinsically complex and highly L1-specific nature of learner language; and the increasingly recognized role of individual variation in the acquisition process. The paper closes with a brief discussion of how these methods can and should be applied to other areas of multilingualism research.
This paper reports the results of an experimental study on the resolution of intra-sentential anaphora in Italian by two groups of 13–14-year-olds: monolingual native Italian speakers and highly proficient child second language (L2) learners of Italian whose native language is Croatian. In a picture selection task the participants were asked to identify antecedents of null and overt subject pronouns in ambiguous forward and backward anaphora sentences. Our assumption in the paper was that Italian and Croatian do not differ with respect to the antecedent biases of null and overt subject pronouns in the contexts under investigation. As predicted, the L2 learners expressed pragmatically appropriate antecedent preferences in all conditions. They even selected the pragmatically inappropriate subject antecedent for the overt pronoun less often than the native speakers, especially in backward anaphora. The L2 learners’ antecedent preferences closely mirror those established in previous research for their age-matched monolingual Croatian peers. We take this as evidence for our position that cross-linguistic influence is operative at the discourse–syntax influence in child L2 acquisition and that it might be the main cause of non-target-like behaviour of some groups of highly proficient bilinguals concerning certain properties pertaining to this interface.
The current study investigated performance on morpho-syntax in Russian–Hebrew sequential bilingual preschool children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) in both languages (L1 Russian and L2 Hebrew) using sentence repetition (SRep) tasks with a fundamental aim to disentangle the language abilities of bilingual children with typical language development (biTLD) from those of bilingual children with SLI (biSLI). Four groups of children participated (N=85) in the study: 45 L1 Russian–L2 Hebrew sequential bilinguals (30 biTLD and 15 biSLI), 20 monolingual Russian-speaking children and 20 monolingual Hebrew-speaking children. The SRep tasks in Russian and in Hebrew were based on Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) SRep developed within COST Action IS0804 titled "Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment". The tasks in Russian and in Hebrew contained 56 sentences of different length and complexity.
The bilingual–monolingual comparisons yielded differences only in L1 Russian, where the monolingual Russian-speaking children outperformed bilingual children with typical language development (TLD) in their first language. In L2 Hebrew, no significant differences emerged between monolingual speakers of Hebrew and bilinguals.
Comparisons of bilingual children with and without SLI showed that both the quantity and the quality of errors differentiate the two bilingual groups. In both languages (L1 and L2), bilingual children with TLD outperformed their peers with SLI. Bilingual children with SLI produced specific error patterns like those previously reported for monolingual children with SLI, i.e. omission of coordinators and subordinators, omission of prepositions, and simplification of wh-questions and relative clauses. These error patterns are unique to children with SLI and cannot be attributed to L1–L2 influence, while the errors of children in the biTLD group can be traced to cross-linguistic influence (mostly L2 influence on L1).
We conclude that SRep tasks are an effective means to bring us closer to distinguishing bilingual children with SLI from those with TLD. They allow us to make quantitative and qualitative comparisons of performance and errors. But, perhaps more importantly, they point to underlying grammatical representations, in particular those linked to cross-linguistic influence and reduced exposure, as a way of distinguishing bilingual children with and without SLI.
This paper investigates the effects of Dutch on the tense-aspect system of heritage Ambon Malay, a variety spoken by Dutch-Ambon Malay bilinguals in the Netherlands. The study asks whether the cross-linguistic contrasts between the two languages – Dutch obligatorily marks past/non-past and finiteness, whereas Ambon Malay lacks a grammaticalized expression of these distinctions – has an effect on the aspectual system of heritage Ambon Malay.
The database for the study consists of video descriptions provided by 32 bilingual speakers (the experimental groups) and by three control groups: 27 homeland speakers of Ambon Malay, 5 first generation speakers of Ambon Malay in the Netherlands (late bilinguals), and 10 monolingual speakers of Dutch.
The frequency and distribution of aspect markers is analysed statistically in the four groups.
The analysis of the data reveals that, under the influence of Dutch, the Ambon Malay progressive marker ada has undergone a shift in temporal status and frequency and it is now interpreted as a marker of present tense, as well as of progressive aspect. The other two aspect markers, the iamitive/perfective su and verbal reduplication (iterative) are used significantly less by heritage speakers.
This study shows that when a grammatical category is present and productive in the dominant language of a bilingual heritage speaker, but not in the heritage language, there is a great likelihood that it will undergo contact-induced grammaticalization, even in a relatively short time contact situation. The study also shows that input-related factors, such as transparency and phonological salience, contribute to the (in)stability of aspectual forms in the heritage language.
This finding has implication for the incomplete acquisition perspective on heritage languages, which sees these languages as grammatically simplified systems (see, e.g., Montrul, 2009; Polinsky, 2008), because it shows that heritage languages can also gain grammatical distinctions previously absent in the (homeland) language.
Cross-linguistic effects in successive childhood bilingualism have received increased attention in the last few years. The goal of this special issue is to bring together studies that investigate cross-linguistic influence in child second language (L2) learners by examining how first language (L1) and L2 properties develop and interact in the context of child L2 acquisition. Specifically, the articles in this special issue address the following questions: (a) What is the role of cross-linguistic influence at the syntax-discourse interface? (b) How do target language properties influence L2 developmental paths? (c) Does the L2 influence the L1 when acquiring a syntax-semantics interface phenomenon? (d) What does cross-linguistic influence look like in the context of atypical bilingual acquisition? These questions are answered in the context of diverse child L2 populations growing up in different acquisition settings and with varied degrees of exposure to the two languages.
The study was intended to test the hypothesis that L2 speakers have difficulty in automatically activating a grammaticalized L2 meaning that is not morphologically marked in L1.
The study consisted of three experiments. A sentence–picture matching task was designed to assess the activation of grammaticalized meaning. The participants were asked to judge if a sentence correctly described the physical relationships of three objects in a picture. Hidden in the stimuli that required a positive response was a number agreement manipulation whereby a noun phrase in the sentence may agree or disagree with the number of objects in the picture. A number disagreement effect, as shown in a delay in producing a positive response on items of number disagreement was used to assess automatic activation of number meanings.
The data constituted reaction times and accuracy rates from 32 English native speakers, 36 Chinese native speakers, 54 Chinese–English bilinguals, and 26 Russian–English bilinguals. Analyses of variance were performed in analyzing these data.
The results showed a number disagreement effect in L1 and L2 among Russian English as a second language (ESL) speakers only. Chinese ESL speakers showed no difference between the two critical conditions in either language. A follow-up experiment showed that Chinese ESL speakers had no difficulty in automatically activating number meanings which were expressed lexically in English sentence processing. These findings provided support for the idea that the well documented difficulty L2 learners have in learning incongruent L2 inflectional morphemes may have to do with their difficulty in automatically activating a grammaticalized meaning that is not grammaticalized in their L1.
The sentence–picture matching task represented a unique and effective approach to the study of the activation of grammaticalized meanings.
The findings from the study represented some first psycholinguistic evidence regarding the activation of grammaticalized meanings among non-native speakers.
This study investigated the acquisition of Spanish Differential Object Marking (DOM) by bilingual and monolingual Spanish teenagers, evaluating to which extent their knowledge of DOM can be explained by different theories of acquisition.
Two experiments with bilingual and monolingual Spanish teenagers (ages 10 to 15) were conducted. The experiments included an Elicited Production Completion Task, in which a space was to either be filled with an object marker or left blank, and a Context-Matching Acceptability Judgment Task.
54 subjects (44 bilinguals and 10 monolinguals) were tested. For both tasks, there were 6 conditions testing different syntactic–semantic features that trigger DOM (test items n = 42 in each task). The data were analysed with linear regressions and repeated measures analyses of variance.
This study’s results show that bilingual teenagers do not demonstrate significant differences from age-matched monolinguals in their competence regarding the syntactic–semantic properties of DOM. Both groups are below ceiling in showing evidence of knowledge about all the syntactic–semantic features involved in DOM, indicating the possibility of a significant delay beyond childhood in their acquisition.
There are few previous studies on the acquisition of DOM, and none which consider the full range of features and specific population considered here. Work by Montrul focuses on the animacy feature, while Guijarro-Fuentes considers the full range of features, but for adult L2 learners of Spanish.
This study shows that the Interface Vulnerability Hypothesis, the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis, the Full Access/Full Transfer Hypothesis and the Interpretability Hypothesis have limitations in explaining its results. Instead, a feature-based approach is proposed in which the specification of features beyond animacy raises difficulties for the acquisition of DOM until late childhood.
This paper presents a new study addressing the issue of cross-linguistic influence in acquisition of referring expressions. The main research question is how to predict directionality of this influence in a dual language development.
The method is an elicited production task. We consider the phenomenon of direct object referring choices, i.e. noun, pronoun and null element, in a ‘null-object’–‘overt-object’ language pair (Ukrainian and English).
Participants of the experiment are 4–6-year-old Ukrainian–English bilinguals (N20) and Ukrainian monolinguals (N21). The data are analyzed in the statistical program R, utilizing the R-library function lme4. The results are presented as odds ratios (ORs) of each direct object type.
Our data reveal that while there is no significant difference in Ukrainian object types in most of the age groups, there is a considerable amount of null object usage in English at the ages of four to five.
The innovative nature of this study lies in: (i) the consideration of a licit object omission at a later stage of language development (from 4 to 6 years of age); (ii) the examination of an under-investigated language combination (i.e. English and Ukrainian); and (iii) the innovative approach to linguistic data analysis (e.g. comparing OR values).
Our findings suggest that the directionality of influence in dual language acquisition depends on the developmental stage, language-specific means of syntax–pragmatics interaction, and extra-linguistic input-related factors. At the early stages of development, the null-object language is likely to influence the overt-object language, especially under conditions of limited exposure to the latter.
This paper examines longitudinal speech data from two Korean sisters, focusing on English irregular past tense forms to probe the course of attrition within the framework of the regression hypothesis, which suggests that language is lost in the reverse order of acquisition. During the course of attrition, evidence supporting one of the two irregular past tense acquisition theories (blocking vs competition hypothesis) is manifested.
The loss of English past tense forms of two girls who had lived in Anglophone Hawaii for two years before returning to Korea is tracked using free speech samples.
The children’s naturalistic speech data collected over a three-year period after their return is analyzed in terms of accuracy and error types.
Although the older sister did not exhibit clear signs of attrition, the constitution of the younger sibling’s licit and illicit past tense usage varied every year, reflecting her declining proficiency. The results also show that the path of attrition follows the prediction of the regression hypothesis.
The prolonged attrition process of the sisters’ language use, which is unlike acquisition that can happen at a quick rate, demonstrated a relatively large window to witness their reshaping grammar at different interlanguage stages.
The sisters’ irregular past forms retreating to a more rudimentary form provided an opportunity to support the competition model of irregular past tense acquisition. Their past tense accuracy and error analysis demonstrated various past tense forms in competition that could produce a different winner over different periods of time.
Our study addresses the following research questions: To what extent is L2 comprehenders’ online sensitivity to morphosyntactic disambiguation cues affected by L1 background? Does noticing the error signal trigger successful reanalysis in both L1 and L2 comprehension? Can previous findings suggesting that case is a better reanalysis cue than agreement be replicated and extended to L2 processing when using closely matched materials?
We carried out a self-paced reading study using temporarily ambiguous object-initial sentences in German. These were disambiguated either by number marking on the verb or by nominative case marking on the subject. End-of-trial comprehension questions probed whether or not our participants ultimately succeeded in computing the correct interpretation.
We tested a total of 121 participants (25 Italian, 32 Russian, 32 Korean and 32 native German speakers), measuring their word-by-word reading times and comprehension accuracy. The data were analysed using linear mixed-effects and logistic regression modelling.
All three learner groups showed online sensitivity to both case and agreement disambiguation cues. Noticing case disambiguations did not necessarily lead to a correct interpretation, whereas noticing agreement disambiguations did. We conclude that intermediate to advanced learners are sensitive to morphosyntactic interpretation cues during online processing regardless of whether or not corresponding grammatical distinctions exist in their L1. Our results also suggest that case is not generally a better reanalysis cue than agreement.
Our three L2 participant groups’ native languages were carefully chosen so as to create systematic typological contrasts. Our experimental materials and conditions were more closely matched compared to previous studies on German object-initial sentences, and our experimental design allowed us to link participants’ reading profiles to successful comprehension.
L1 influence on L2 processing is more limited than might be expected. Contra previous findings, even intermediate learners show sensitivity to both agreement and case information during processing.
The present study adopted the electroencephalogram (EEG) technique to investigate whether inhibition advantage could modulate different language switches, regardless of the time spent on second language learning.
The inhibitory control (IC) ability of 80 low-proficient Chinese (L1)-English (L2) bilinguals was assessed by the Simon task. Half of these bilinguals were then subdivided into 20 high- and 20 low-IC participants to perform switching between L1 and L2 (L1–L2 switching), and the other half were subdivided into 20 high- and 20 low-IC participants to conduct switching between L1 and Lnew (L1–Lnew switching). All participants were required to name pictures (picture naming task) in their L1 and L2/Lnew in language switching task.
Both response latencies and EEG data were obtained, and then evoked and induced oscillations were calculated using time–frequency analysis.
The results of language switching showed similar naming latencies for L1 and L2/Lnew switch trials in the high-IC group, whereas the low-IC group showed larger naming latencies for L1 switch trials than L2/Lnew switch trials. In contrast, the high-IC group exhibited larger theta evoked and induced power for L2/Lnew switch trials than L1 switch trials at the lexical selection level, whereas the low-IC group did not. These findings indicate that inhibition advantage helps the high-IC group to suppress effectively the non-target word via recruiting bottom-up (evoked oscillation) and top-down (induced oscillation) processes.
The present study was a first attempt to provide evidence that theta oscillation indicates cross-language interference at the lexical selection level.
Inhibition plays a modulatory role in language switching, which is independent of the time spent on second language learning, and such role involves bottom-up (i.e., evoked oscillation) and top-down (i.e., induced oscillation) processes which were mainly evident at the lexical selection level.
This paper suggests a framework of separate and flexible multilingualism to describe multilingual phenomena in Macao. The aims are to capture both conventional and creative language practice and to explore what exactly is the state of multilingualism in modern Macao under the context of globalization, and more specifically how we can capture variation in multilingual practice.
The objectives are achieved by analyzing the interplay and distance between languages in multilingual texts, focusing on the multimodality and intertextuality of the texts.
The database is a collection of 300 posters for cultural and entertainment events in Macao. The distance of languages is analyzed at the unit level in multimodal texts; separate and flexible multilingualism are exemplified and further elaborated.
Multilingualism in Macao is mainly characterized by separate multilingualism, where different languages are demarcated clearly. However, Macao is undergoing a significant process of globalization, accompanied by a huge flow of people, and concomitantly flexible multilingualism is emergent and coexistent with separate multilingualism. Flexible multilingualism is often manifested in translanguaging. The various practices of translanguaging are performances of creativity and they show criticality by problematizing the widely accepted essentialist conceptions on boundaries between languages and modes.
This paper extends the framework of separate and flexible multilingualism to explain multilingual practice in general. We analyze multimodal data using a combined method of multimodality and multilingualism while focusing on the linguistic elements. The paper treats the posters as a special and less studied type of linguistic landscape in Macao, and it provides an original and realistic interpretation of the written multilingual linguistic landscape in a unique Chinese city.
This paper provides a new way of understanding multilingualism; translanguaging is broadened to account for written data. Multilingualism can be understood better by observing language-related practice in multimodal texts.
This paper explores one dimension of language maintenance among college-aged heritage speakers of Spanish (HSS) in three communities of the U.S. Midwest. The aim was to understand whether Spanish was relevant at a point in life in which they were developing their own networks away from their families. Research questions: Were reading and writing in Spanish relevant for the participants? Did they use Spanish when on social media? Did they text in Spanish? Was Spanish relevant for them when consuming content on electronic media?
This analysis is part of a larger study on HSS in communities of recent Latino settlement. Respondents participated in an oral interview and responded to an online survey.
Results presented here come from a study designed to gather data on reported interlocutors, reading and writing, electronic media consumption, and social media use. Respondents were 71 HSS between the ages of 19 and 29. Results were compared with two control groups: 23 L2 speakers and 24 native speakers attending the same schools. Higher relevance was assumed when an event was reported closest to the moment of response. Reading and writing were classified as school, personal interest, employment, other. Relevance as related to social media, music, and internet use was determined by reported frequency.
Highest relevance was reported for texting and listening to music; lowest was reported for consumption of internet content. Results for texting, social media and personal interest reading/writing suggest that for these speakers Spanish was viable for accrual of bonding social capital. Reading/writing reports suggest that for many, Spanish was also viable to attain specific academic goals. Environmental pressures to shift are evidenced in the uses not (or barely) reported: reading/writing related to work, religion and daily living, and consumption of internet content.
This paper focuses on maintenance of relevance of a heritage language in the first stage of adult life.
Results suggest that in using Spanish, respondents were not bound by physical context or immediate availability of interlocutors, but by their perceptions of viability.
This paper aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the social meaning of a contemporary urban vernacular called Citétaal (Citélanguage).
While most studies on the perception of urban vernaculars have applied qualitative discursive methods, we investigate the perception of and attitudes towards Citétaal by combining a qualitative and quantitative approach. In a discursive analysis of online surveys and social media networks, we analyze how this variety is perceived and represented on a collective level, and in comparison to other varieties, such as standard Dutch and regional Limburg Flemish. These insights are used to organize a speaker evaluation experiment (n=95) in which we verify to what extent the various meanings in the indexical field of Citétaal occur on the individual level of the listener’s mind and how they are structured. We will also measure the listener’s ability to guess the speaker’s ethnic and regional origin. The qualitative data will be further used to interpret the results of the experiment.
It will be shown that although social meanings of Citétaal strongly vary within the community, they are clearly regimented by prevailing standard language ideologies. Citétaal is still perceived as a vernacular spoken by foreign speakers, and its social meanings fluctuate between values of low social status and high attractiveness. The opposition (considered as distance) between speaker attractiveness and status is the highest for Citétaal and the lowest for standard Dutch, which suggests that social meanings of standard Dutch are more stable and widely accepted throughout the Flemish community.
The conclusions highlight the importance of combining qualitative and quantitative methods when studying perceptions and attitudes in order to provide a fuller understanding of the social meaning of urban vernaculars in the larger community.
The present study aimed to investigate the effects of linguistic input training on second language (L2) syntactic representation entrenchment using English subject–verb agreement structures as the stimuli.
A pre-test/training/first-post/delayed post-test experimental design was adopted. Sixty Chinese (L1)–English (L2) adult learners participated in the experiments and were randomly assigned to the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG). In training sessions, EG learned the subject–verb structures, and CG learned other syntactic structures.
Reaction time and comprehension accuracy data were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis of variance. P2 and P3 signified the key positions of the verb and the word immediately following the verb in the experimental sentence, respectively. For example, the reading time indicator was the time for reading the key positions of the example sentence "The book under the newspaper was interesting". The words "newspaper", "was", and "interesting" were marked as P1, P2, and P3, respectively.
At pre-test, there was no difference between the EG and the CG in processing the subject–verb agreement structures. After two sessions of intensive training, the first post-test indicated that the EG had significantly longer reading times for the P2 and P3 positions of the ungrammatical sentences than those of the grammatical versions. The CG showed no differences in reading times. At delayed post-test, the EG had significantly longer reading times for the P3 position for all of the ungrammatical sentences than for the grammatical ones. The CG exhibited no differences in reading times. The results indicated both short-term and long-term efficacy of input training and transfer effects of input on representation entrenchment.
In adult L2 syntactic literature, the current study empirically and directly explored the role of input training in entrenching L2 syntactic representation.
The study suggested that input training can entrench representation. These results support the usage-based theory.
In this study, we investigated crosslinguistic influence in the phonetic systems of simultaneous bilinguals (2L1s) during adulthood.
Specifically, we analyzed the voice onset time (VOT) of the voiceless stop /k/ in the spontaneous speech of 14 German–French bilinguals who grew up in France or Germany. We looked at both languages, first comparing the groups, second comparing their VOT to their global accent.
The material consisted of interviews, lasting for about half an hour.
Most 2L1s showed distinct VOT-ranges in their two languages, even if they were perceived to have a foreign accent in the minority language of their childhood environment. We conclude that the phonetic systems of 2L1s remain separate and stable throughout the lifespan. However, the 2L1s from France had significantly shorter VOTs in German than the 2L1s from Germany, and their speech was overall more accented. These findings are discussed with respect to the role of intra- and extra-linguistic factors.
Our study adds a new perspective to existing VOT studies of bilinguals by using naturalistic speech data and by comparing two groups of 2L1s who have the same language combination but grew up in different countries, which allows us to evaluate the impact of their childhood environment on VOT development.
Language exposure during childhood seems to be beneficial for pronunciation during adulthood.
We aimed to investigate whether bilingual pupil’s perceptions of teachers’ appreciation of their home language were of influence on bilingual cognitive advantages.
We examined whether Dutch bilingual primary school pupils who speak either German or Turkish at home differed in perceptions of their teacher’s appreciation of their HL, and whether these differences could explain differences between the two groups in executive functioning.
Executive functioning was measured through computer tasks, and perceived home language appreciation through orally administered questionnaires. The relationship between the two was assessed with regression analyses.
German-Dutch pupils perceived there to be more appreciation of their home language from their teacher than Turkish-Dutch pupils. This difference did partly explain differences in executive functioning. Besides, we replicated bilingual advantages in nonverbal working memory and switching, but not in verbal working memory or inhibition.
This study demonstrates that bilingual advantages cannot be dissociated from the influence of the sociolinguistic context of the classroom. Thereby, it stresses the importance of culturally responsive teaching.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether four different cognate identification methods resulted in notably different classifications of cognate status for Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Third Edition (PPVT-III) test items and to investigate whether differences across criteria would impact findings of cognate effects in adult and preschool-aged Spanish-English bilingual speakers.
We compared four cognate identification methods: an objective criterion based on phonological overlap; two subjective criteria based on a translation elicitation task; and a hybrid criterion integrating objective and subjective standards. We then used each criterion to investigate cognate effects on the PPVT-III in 26 adult and 73 child Spanish-English bilinguals.
The test items identified as cognates by each criterion were compared (Experiment 1). Then, cognate advantage magnitudes, cognate accuracy rates, non-cognate accuracy rates, and number of individuals demonstrating the cognate advantage were investigated in both adult (Experiment 2) and child bilinguals (Experiment 3).
Objective and subjective cognate identification methods were found to select notably different subsets of test items as cognates. Further, the methods led to differences in cognate effects, as well as in cognate and non-cognate accuracy rates, for both child and adult bilinguals.
Although the cognate advantage has been widely studied in adult bilinguals, research on the cognate advantage in child bilinguals is limited and methods of identifying cognates are inconsistent across studies. The present study provides information about cognate effects in a young population and is the first comparison of objective and subjective approaches to cognate identification.
This study extends previous work on cognate word processing in both child and adult bilinguals. Further, results offer an evaluation of methodologies that are critical for investigating the cognate advantage. This both facilitates interpretation of previous findings and can be used to guide methodological decisions in future research.
We examined the bi-directional interaction of first language (L1) and second language (L2) word use patterns by asking whether L2 patterns of word use can be acquired with intensive exposure in a laboratory setting, and whether this early stage of L2 learning would impact L1 performance.
In two experiments, native speakers of English first labeled drinking vessels in English, then received intensive training on L2 Russian naming patterns for the objects, and, lastly, labeled the objects in English again.
Data were collected from eight different training groups with 14–15 participants each plus a control group with 14 participants who did not learn L2 Russian.
Trained participants successfully acquired L2 Russian patterns of word use regardless of specific training condition. However, they showed significantly less consistency in L1 English post-test labeling than the control group.
Neither full acquisition of L2 patterns nor their simultaneous impact on L1 choices has been previously demonstrated.
These outcomes suggest that acquisition of target-like L2 word use can be facilitated by intensive exposure to word-referent mappings. However, even in the early stages of L2 learning, a L2 influence may be manifested in the L1 as a destabilization of word-to-referent mappings, suggesting continuous dynamic interaction between the two languages.
Considerable research has investigated how bilinguals produce and comprehend words, focusing mainly on how bilinguals are able to select words from the appropriate language. Less research, however, has investigated whether production and comprehension involve the same underlying mechanisms. The present study explores this issue by examining whether production and comprehension, in the first language (L1) and second language (L2), are similarly influenced by factors relating to language experience, language use, and cognitive functioning.
Spanish-English bilinguals living in an English-speaking environment completed a picture naming task and a lexical decision task in their L1 and L2. In addition, participants completed the Operation Span task testing working memory and the Flanker task testing inhibitory control, and completed a language history questionnaire probing their language experience, relative proficiency, and codeswitching behavior.
Performance on all tasks was submitted to correlation analyses and the impact of individual difference measures on word production and comprehension was assessed via regression analyses.
Results showed that (1) production and comprehension were more closely linked in L1 than in L2; (2) production in L1 and L2 was predicted by language proficiency; and (3) comprehension in L1 and L2 was predicted by working memory.
This is the first study to compare lexical processing in production and comprehension in both L1 and L2 and how these processes are influenced by language experience, use, and cognitive factors.
Word production and comprehension appear to be more tightly linked in L1 than L2, but seem to rely on different processing mechanisms.
Drawing on the notions of ‘interface’ and ‘cross-linguistic influence’ in second language acquisition (L2A), the present study addresses the possible role of French as a third language (L3) in the L2A of English number agreement with two major concerns: (1) the degree to which third language acquisition (L3A) will bring about any positive or negative influence on L2A, and (2) the way in which an L3 interacts with L2 and/or even L1 on narrow syntax or an internal interface as identified in L2A.
To address the research concerns, a comparison was made between 48 L1 Cantonese–L2 English–L3 French (CEF) participants and 46 L1 Cantonese–L2 English (CE) participants. Twenty English native controls were also recruited. All participants completed two timed tasks: a grammaticality judgement-correction task and a free writing task. After the experiment proper, the grammatical component of the Oxford placement test, consisting of 60 items, was administered to the two groups of L1 Cantonese speakers.
The following tests were run: the Wilcoxon signed ranks test, the Mann–Whitney U test, the Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance, the non-parametric x2-test and the two-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test.
While the placement test indicated comparable English levels between the two L1 Cantonese groups, the free writing task revealed certain distinctive patterns, suggesting possible influence from L3 French to L2 English among the CEF participants. In particular, the advanced L3 French participants were different from their L3 French peers and the CE participants in their free production of grammatical nominal plurals.
The study highlights the potential of reverse cross-linguistic influence from L3 to L2 among L1 Cantonese speakers.
Possible traces of L3 French–L2 English effect were noted in affecting the CEF learners’ use of English plural morphology by ‘neutralising’ their production of missing or redundant plural ‘-s’. Typological similarities between French and English and L3 proficiency were found to play a role in such transfers.
In this study we examined whether highly proficient bilinguals with superior proficiency in L2 have higher anticipatory control in the oculomotor domain compared to low proficiency bilinguals.
We examined this in a task that had no conflict and did not require inhibitory control for target discrimination. Participants were instructed to programme a saccade towards a target only when the colour of the starting circle changed from one colour to another. Therefore to be fast, as well as accurate, participants should have prepared saccades in anticipation of this task. The task was simple enough to extract anticipatory behaviour in the oculomotor domain.
Thirty high proficiency and thirty low proficiency Hindi–English bilinguals participated in this study. We calculated saccade latency and also the number of anticipatory saccades in an eye-tracking study. Apart from this we did regression analysis to examine if language proficiency predicted anticipatory control.
Highly proficient bilinguals were overall faster compared to the less proficient bilinguals. Additionally, highly proficient bilinguals also made a greater number of anticipatory saccades than the low proficiency group. L2 proficiency also significantly correlated with saccade latency as well as with the number of anticipatory saccades. These results thus demonstrate that higher proficiency in language use leads to better anticipatory control in the oculomotor domain.
This is the first study that shows the effect of language proficiency on anticipatory control in the oculomotor domain.
The results have significance for theories related to bilingualism and its effects on action control.
The present study aimed at investigating whether cognitive flexibility plays the same role in language switching as in task switching.
Cognitive flexibility (CF) of 52 low proficiency Chinese (L1)–English (L2) bilinguals was assessed by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task. These bilinguals were then subdivided in 26 high- and 26 low-CF participants. Both groups performed a task-switching (Simon switch task) and a language-switching task (picture-naming task). The former task required participants to press a button congruent or incongruent to the pointing direction of an arrow, while in the latter participants had to name pictures in their L1 and L2.
Both response latencies and accuracy scores were obtained. Afterwards switch costs (i.e. longer latencies or reduced accuracy for switch in contrast to repeat trials) were calculated.
Results of the Simon switch task showed that switch costs for congruent and incongruent trials were symmetrical in the high-CF group, whereas the low-CF group showed larger switch costs for congruent than incongruent trials. Similarly, results of the language-switch task showed symmetrical switch costs for naming pictures in their L1 and L2 for the high-CF group, but L1 switch costs were larger than L2 ones in the low-CF group. These findings indicate that cognitive flexibility can modulate switch costs of two different switching tasks. This is in line with the inhibitory control model and the task-set inertia theory which assume that cognitive flexibility might modulate the symmetry of different types of switch costs via inhibition.
This study provides first direct evidence that cognitive flexibility plays a comparably important role in language switching as well as in task switching. Thus, cognitive flexibility can be beneficial for low proficiency bilinguals’ inhibitory control during task switching and language switching.
This study documents early lexical expression in children whose language input in the home was predominantly Maltese, accompanied by regular exposure to English lexical mixing. Bilingualism and language contact were also present at the societal level. The study attempts to determine whether the children’s pattern of vocabulary growth corresponded to a monolingual or bilingual mode of development.
The expressive vocabularies of 60 children aged 1;0 to 2;6 years were measured using caregiver reports and language sampling.
Expressive scores representing total vocabulary, Maltese and English words as well as translation equivalents were derived from the language samples and caregiver-completed vocabulary checklists.
Both Maltese and English words were identified in the children’s expressive vocabularies. Higher translation equivalent proportions were reported across daily settings than were sampled. Participants seemed to introduce new equivalents for words previously used in one language according to the needs of the communicative context. These findings demonstrate a basic level of bilingualism in the participants and suggest selective use of equivalents in response to environmental demands. The latter would imply the presence of a double lexical system, indicating a more refined bilingual status, although insufficient contextual evidence made this a tentative proposition. Fragmented exposure to English appeared unable to support the participants’ bilingual development beyond the lexical domain.
While documenting lexical development in children exposed to a distinctive language-learning context that is as yet under-researched, this study adds to the limited evidence on lexical expression in young children exposed to substantial lexical mixing in their input.
These findings highlight the development of bilingual proficiency as a process that spreads across linguistic levels in accordance with input variables. They also suggest that Maltese children’s bilingual lexicons may have the potential to kick-start their sequential bilingual development once systematic exposure to integral English is introduced through schooling.
This study examines the relative contribution of prosody and segments in the perception of foreign-accented speech. Although both prosody and segments have previously been shown to contribute to the degree of foreign accentedness, results for their relative contribution have proven inconclusive and little is known about their interaction. We recorded read speech of five German learners of English – with and without previous exposure to the Belfast English accent – and one native speaker of Belfast English. Through acoustic manipulations that allow separation of prosodic and segmental information in the speech signal, we created combinations of native segments with non-native prosody and vice versa. The resulting stimuli were then presented to 60 native English listeners, who rated their foreign accentedness, in order to establish whether the impact of prosody depends on the degree of foreign accent at the segmental level and/or the other way round. Group analyses of the obtained foreign accent ratings are presented, supplemented by phonetic analyses of the manipulated stimuli and individual L2 speakers. Results confirm that whilst both segments and prosody contributed to foreign accent perception, listeners were more influenced by segments than prosody. In addition, it was found that the impact of prosody on perceived foreign accentedness varied depending on the origin of the segments: listeners’ sensitivity to small prosodic differences from the native norm was compromised when mixed with non-native segments, whereas sensitivity to small prosodic differences from the non-native norm was compromised when mixed with native segments. In light of this, we propose that there needs to be a degree of correspondence between segments and prosody for small deviances in prosody to be perceived. The study thus contributes to research on foreign accent perception and suggests that the interplay between segments and prosody in such perceptions is more intricate than previously thought.
Based on the tenets of ethnolinguistic identity theory, this paper provides an insight into the complexity of ethnolinguistic identity and its relationship to ethnolinguistic vitality among young Finns with a Swedish-Finnish, mixed language family background. Questionnaire data was collected in Swedish language secondary schools in 2014 (N = 115). The data was analyzed with structural equation modelling. The results showed that ethnolinguistic identity may comprise affiliation with both Swedish and Finnish speakers as well as bilinguals. Further, higher subjective vitality of Finnish was significantly related to higher identification with Swedish speakers but it was not significantly connected to Finnish-speaking and bilingual identities. In parallel, higher subjective vitality of Swedish was significantly related to higher identification with Finnish speakers but it was not significantly related to Swedish-speaking and bilingual identities. Findings and their implications are discussed.
This article investigates whether learners are able to quickly discover simple, systematic graphemic correspondence rules between their L1 and an unknown but closely related language in a setting of receptive multilingualism.
Eighty L1 German speakers participated in a translation task with written Dutch words, most of which had a German cognate. In the first part of the translation task, participants were shown 48 Dutch words, among which either 10 cognates containing the digraph <oe> (always corresponding to a German word with <u>) or 10 cognates with the digraph <ij> (corresponding to German <ei>). During this part, participants were given feedback in the form of the correct translation. In the second (feedback-free) part of the task, participants were shown another 150 Dutch words, among which 21 cognates with <oe> and 21 cognates with <ij>.
The participants’ German translations of <oe> and <ij> cognates in the second part were coded for the presence of <u> and <ei>, respectively. The data were then analyzed in generalized linear mixed models. Data and R code are available online.
Participants who encountered <oe> or <ij> cognates in the first part were more likely to translate <oe> or <ij> cognates using German words containing <u> or <ei>, respectively, in the second part compared to their respective controls, suggesting that correspondence rule learning had taken place. Learning effects during the second part, i.e. in the absence of explicit feedback, were more modest.
This study provides the first direct experimental evidence of interlingual correspondence rule learning during a receptive multilingualism task.
These findings pave the way towards investigations of the learning of more complex, less systematic correspondence rules that are nonetheless of great importance in receptive multilingualism.
Recent studies that have investigated novel word learning have demonstrated an advantage for bilinguals compared to monolinguals. The study reported here sought to explore whether a word learning advantage is revealed only for early bilinguals with comparable proficiency in both their languages, or whether such advantages are also observed in individuals with relatively late experience of, and less proficiency in, a second language.
We tested the acquisition of novel words in an unknown language using identification and naming tasks in three groups of 20 participants: monolingual Tamil speakers; early Tamil–English bilingual speakers; and late Tamil–English bilingual speakers.
The data was analysed using a non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test followed by linear regressions.
The results showed a bilingual advantage for word learning as evidenced by superior performance in both the naming and identification tasks and, critically, late bilinguals outperformed monolinguals.
The results of the present study revealed, for the first time, a bilingual advantage in word learning even when individuals acquire their second language later in life.
The results suggest that the positive effects of bilingualism may generalise beyond non-linguistic tasks, perhaps affecting a general language learning mechanism. Moreover, this seems to occur even in late bilingualism. This is in contrast to the reported effects on cognitive control mechanisms that show only weaker advantages for individuals who learned a second language later in life.
The present study investigates the suprasegmental reflexes of code-switching, considering both language context (i.e., language mode) and language dominance.
To this end, an experimental oral production paradigm was administered to 14 Spanish-English bilinguals, comparing code-switched to non-switched productions and varying both context (monolingual or bilingual) and response language (dominant or non-dominant).
Productions were analyzed for two suprasegmental features: pitch height and stressed vowel duration.
Results indicate a significant effect of code-switching on suprasegmental production, with code-switched tokens produced with overall greater pitch movement and duration relative to non-switched tokens. These effects, however, were modulated by both language context and language dominance.
Given the relation of prosody to cognitive factors, this novel approach to the suprasegmental features of code-switching, specifically considering language dominance and context, provides a unique opportunity to further the understanding of the underlying language switching process.
These findings are addressed within a theoretical framework of predictability and hyper-articulation, and it is suggested that the suprasegmental realizations of code-switched tokens correspond to a degree of contextually driven predictability.
We evaluated whether the processing of two-digit numbers was determined by the direction of reading in the two languages of bilingual individuals.
A group of Arabic (L1)/Spanish (L2) proficient bilinguals performed a comparison task with Arabic digits, Arabic number words and Spanish number words while the unit–decade compatibility effect was evaluated.
Participants showed a regular compatibility effect with Arabic digits. However, no compatibility effect was observed when they performed the task with verbal numbers, regardless of whether numbers were presented in Arabic or in Spanish.
The similar pattern of results across the bilinguals’ two languages suggests that the direction of the reading (right-to-left in Arabic and left-to-right in Spanish) did not influence the processing of verbal numbers.
This is the first study in which the unit–decade compatibility effect has been explored with Arabic/Spanish bilinguals.
The main point to highlight from this study is that bilinguals are not influenced by the reading direction of their languages when they process two-digit verbal numbers.
In this longitudinal study, we examined bilingual children’s acquisition of definiteness in Hebrew (L2). Hebrew distinguishes between definite and indefinite nouns by marking definiteness by article. We recorded the speech of nine bilingual Russian–Hebrew-speaking children ranging in age from three to four years old in monthly sessions over a period of seven months. Their age of onset of acquisition of Hebrew (L2) ranged from six to 42 months. The L1 of all participants was Russian, which has no definite and indefinite articles.
We compared the bilingual children’s acquisition of definiteness in Hebrew to that of monolingual Hebrew-speaking children to outline the qualitative and/or quantitative differences in the patterns found. This comparison also enabled us to determine whether the bilinguals transfer their knowledge from L1 to L2 (transfer hypothesis) or show fluctuation in their article choice (fluctuation hypothesis).
Four tendencies were found with regard to the bilingual children: 1. All bilingual children made omission errors in definite contexts (evidence of transfer); 2. We observed misuse of articles, overuse and syntactic errors in all the children’s utterances (evidence of fluctuation); 3. We found both similarities and differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in acquisition of definiteness; and 4. Children with early age of L2 onset (before age three) demonstrated more accelerated acquisition of definiteness than children with later onset of L2 (after age three).
Learning to control reference in narratives is a major step in becoming a speaker of a second language, including a signed language. Previous research describes the pragmatic and cognitive mechanisms that are used for reference control and it is clear that differences are apparent between first and second language speakers. However, some debate exists about the reasons for second language learners’ tendency for over-redundancy in reference forms especially in the use of pronouns. In this study we tested these proposed reasons for L2 differences.
Narratives by 11 native signers and 13 adult advanced-learners of Catalan sign language were analysed for person reference.
Analysis focused on forms for introduction, reintroduction and maintenance of characters.
The results indicate both groups used reference forms according to information saliency principles in similar ways. Differences between the groups were in the use of pronominal signs, where the learners adopted an over-redundancy strategy in line with one hypothesis in the previous studies on second language acquisition in spoken languages.
The results are discussed in terms of the vulnerable syntax–pragmatics interface in developing bilinguals
A number of studies revealed effects of bilingualism on the cognitive development of both children and adults. Executive functions in particular seem to be enhanced due to the constant use of two language systems. In the present study, we explored whether effects of enhanced executive functioning are also related to bilinguals’ performance on a scientific reasoning task.
In a quasi-experimental design we compared monolingual and bilingual elementary school students on a variety of measures including language proficiency, cognitive ability, executive functions, and a modified reasoning task adapted from Kuhn and Pease (2006).
The data of 57 elementary school students were analyzed using multiple regression analysis and group comparisons via multivariate ANOVAs.
Results revealed specific group differences on the measures of executive functions. On the measure of inhibition, the bilingual group showed superior performance, while no differences on the measure of attentional control were found. Moreover, regression analyses revealed that students’ performance on the reasoning task was best explained by the measures of cognitive ability and attentional control. However, the total amount of variance explained by our measures was less than 20%. Since there were no group differences on these variables, an advantage of bilingualism on the reasoning task was not detected.
The results of the study contribute to the body of research on the cognitive effects of bilingualism and its specifics. Moreover, they extend research on the positive effects of bilingualism to more applied contexts.
The results emphasize the necessity to specify the role of executive functions in reasoning tasks in order to reliably test for a possible transfer of bilingual advantages to academic learning contexts.
The study considers (1) the nature of multilingual transfer in the pre-intermediate stage of third-language (L3) English and (2) the upper limit of L3 ultimate attainment with respect to the acquisition of definite and indefinite restrictive relative clauses.
The methodology used was four-point scale acceptability judgment tasks testing (un)-grammatical relative sentences.
The accuracy scores of two control groups of French (n = 15) and English (n = 12) natives and two groups of pre-intermediate (n = 11) and advanced (n = 15) adult learners of L3 English are submitted to parametric statistical analysis.
The results of the pre-intermediate L3 learners indicate that the relative complementizer phrase structure is available as a block from the earlier stages, while the feature matrix of the complementizer is a hybrid of first-language (L1) Arabic and second-language (L2) French features [EPP, ±definite, –wh]. The L3 interlanguage at this stage presents simultaneous L1 non-facilitative and L2 facilitative transfer effects. The performance of the advanced L3 learners shows that they can successfully re-assemble the features of the complementizer matrix substituting the target [–wh] for the native [±definite].
This article uses a novel language triplet L1 Arabic–L2 French–L3 English to investigate the L3 acquisition of restrictive relatives in a formal foreign language context. The focus is on the interplay between the (in)-definiteness of the head noun and the nature of the complementizer.
The study extends the viability of Lardiere’s feature re-assembly account of L2 acquisition to L3 acquisition. The (in)-definiteness of the head noun of the relative clause needs adequate attention in language teaching, like the much-highlighted aspects of resumption.
This article explores the issue of second language (L2) acquisition of argument structure as it relates specifically to Spanish psych-verbs. These predicates are classified into three classes according to their distinct aspectual nature, which corresponds to different morphosyntactic properties. This study tests L2 learners’ ability to understand these subtle distinctions in spite of the impoverished input to which they are exposed and the lack of instruction and first language (L1) transfer. In particular, the research questions I explore are the following: (1) Are L2 learners aware of the fact that Class III has two possible word order configurations while Class II allows only one? (2) Do L2ers recognize that Class II allows antipassive se whereas Class III does not?
A control group of 36 native Spanish speakers and an experimental group of 65 native English learners of Spanish across four proficiency levels conducted two scalar grammaticality judgment tasks. Their data, analyzed through repeated-measures ANOVA, showed that these L2ers had a good understanding of the morphosyntactic reflexes that distinguish eventive and stative psych-verbs.
Since these properties could neither have been learned through instruction nor transferred from the L1 or accessed straightforwardly from the input, learners must have resorted to universal mappings between meaning and syntax in order to achieve these target-like patterns of behavior.
Although the acquisition of argument structure has been the topic of a considerable amount of early research in the field, this article looks at a completely novel instantiation of argument structure and its learnability.
This study contributes with new data to the long-standing debate on the poverty-of-the-stimulus (POS) argument by supporting positions that contend that L2 acquisition is characterized by a logical problem and that L2 learners can successfully overcome this POS by resorting to universal principles.
Several studies suggest that third language acquisition (TLA) is marked with complex patterns of language interaction. However, it is not clear yet to what extent multilinguals activate each of their background languages in TLA, as various factors may trigger the activation of one of the previously learnt languages. This study aims to contribute to the discussion by examining the use of verbal morphology in third language (L3) Turkish of Russian–English–Turkish trilinguals. We investigate whether the use of verbal morphology in L3 Turkish of Russian–English–Turkish trilinguals differs from that of Turkish native speakers and in the case of a deviation, which of the background languages can account for it.
The study is done within the framework of cross-linguistic influence.
The data are collected from eight native speakers of Russian who are highly proficient in their L2 English and L3 Turkish, and use their three languages more or less equally every day. Fictional narratives are employed in the study as the tool for data collection. The use of finite and non-finite verbal forms in Turkish is compared with the baseline data coming from native speakers of Turkish.
The results reveal that the trilingual participants mainly use the verbal morphology consistently with native speakers of Turkish; nonetheless, two deviations from the Turkish baseline stand out: tendency to use finite verbal forms in their noun clauses and inconsistency in the use of temporal-aspectual markers in finite verbal forms. The former can be attributed to the L1 and L2 interlanguage, while the latter can be attributed to the influence of particularly L1 Russian.
Thus, the study provides evidence that the source of interference into L3 production is likely to occur due to the cross-linguistic influence from L1, which in turn might imply the predominant position of L1 over sequentially learnt languages at the morphosyntactic level in the language processing.
Although the terms "bicultural" and "bilingual" are often seen together in the same text, there is very little work that attempts to encompass them into one reality, bicultural bilinguals. This paper takes up a number of themes that pertain to bicultural bilinguals, most notably how they are described in the literature, how they become both bilingual and bicultural, and how their languages and cultures wax and wane over time. Other aspects discussed are their linguistic and cultural behaviour as bicultural bilinguals, how they identify themselves both linguistically and culturally, as well as their personality as bicultural bilinguals. An effort is made whenever possible to bridge the gap between the two components that make up bicultural bilinguals – the linguistic and the cultural – and to show how the questions that interest linguists when studying bilinguals can be taken up and adapted by researchers examining cultural issues, and vice versa.
This study reports on language mixing in two Romani communities, with a century-long presence in Finland and in Greece respectively. A quantitative analysis of free-speech data shows that verbs from the contact languages, Finnish and Turkish, are systematically inserted into a dominant Romani speech with their respective Finnish and Turkish tense, mood, aspect, and person morphology. The insertion in language A of non-integrated single words from language B is atypical for classic code-switching and borrowing, but is a well-known mechanism in the creation of mixed languages. Unlike mixed languages, however, where no single dominant language can be identified, Romani is the main component in the corpora under study. We suggest that this type of Romani language mixing illustrates an early stage of mixed language formation that did not develop into an independent mixed language, owing to changes in the sociopolitical settings.
In this work an empirical study grounded in the principles and methods of the comparative variationist framework is conducted to measure the scope of language contact as a factor constraining some potentially diverging uses of a Spanish verbal periphrasis that has undergone a sharp decline over the last century (haber de plus infinitive). The analysis is based on three independent samples of text that correspond to three dialectal areas of peninsular Spanish (monolingual zones, Catalan-speaking linguistic territories and the north-western linguistic area). These samples, extracted from a corpus made up of texts of communicative immediacy from the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, confirm the existence of a certain linguistic convergence in the expressive habits of the speakers in the bilingual communities. In each region, however, the outcomes are different, due to parallel differences in the structural position of the periphrasis in each language. However, a thorough analysis of the variable context that surrounds the periphrasis shows that the observed differences do not affect the essence of the underlying grammar of this variant, whose decline (which favours tener que plus infinitive and becomes faster as the 20th century advances) is constrained by identical linguistic and extralinguistic conditioning factors in all the dialectal areas.
The topic of cross-linguistic differences regarding the overt or null expression of arguments has been considered both in first (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition. There is abundant literature on both subject and object drop with different language pairings but the issue has not been considered in third language (L3) acquisition. The main goal of this article is to analyse the L3 interlanguage of Basque-Spanish bilinguals regarding the acceptability and interpretation of null objects. The three languages involved in the study display different semantic requirements for the target structure, with Basque allowing for a null object option across-the-board, Spanish only under certain semantic conditions, and English disallowing it in the standard variety. Two trilingual, one bilingual and a control group (n = 119) rated experimental items embedded in context, presented in a written and aural format on a computer screen. Findings point to the successful acquisition of the target structure, as well as a clear influence of Spanish in the three experimental groups.
The purpose of this study was to understand the reading performance of subgroups of language minority students and examine whether a research-based academic vocabulary intervention, Word Generation, has differential effects on these students’ academic vocabulary knowledge. Thirteen middle schools, propensity-score matched based on their achievement and demographic data, were randomly assigned to either treatment (n = 3,539) or control (n = 2,630) conditions. Students in both conditions were classified as either English-only (EO) or language minority students. The language minority students were further grouped as either being initially fluent English proficient (IFEP), redesignated fluent English proficient (RFEP), or limited English proficient (LEP). Multivariate analysis of variance and hierarchical linear models revealed three important findings. First, while LEP students’ scores on reading measures were significantly below those of the EO students, RFEP students’ scores were comparable to EO students’ scores. In addition, IFEP students’ scores were higher than those of the EO students. Second, there were variations within the RFEP students when they were disaggregated by time since redesignation; RFEP students’ reading scores were positively correlated with time since redesignation. Third, the treatment effect emerged only as an interaction with RFEP status. This study suggests that the benefits of a research-based intervention may vary according to students’ level of English proficiency.
This paper presents a quantitative corpus-based variationist analysis of the English insertions used by Belgian Dutch and Netherlandic Dutch participants to the reality TV show ‘Expeditie Robinson’. The data consist of manual transcriptions of 35 hours of recordings for 46 speakers from 3 seasons of the show. Focusing on the expressive utterances in the corpus, we present a mixed-effect logistic regression analysis to pattern which of a variety of speaker-related and context-related features can help explain the occurrence of English insertions in Dutch. The results show a strong impact of typical variationist variables such as gender, age and location; but features that are more situational, such as emotional charge and topic of the conversation, also prove relevant. Overall, in its combined focus on (a) oral corpora of spontaneous language use, (b) social patterns in the use of English and (c) inferential statistical modeling, this paper presents new perspectives on the study of Anglicisms in weak contact settings.
According to a national survey on language usage, Veneto dialect (spoken in Veneto, one of Italy’s northeastern regions) benefits from the widest usage range compared to other regional dialects spoken in the Italoromance domain. We collected 35 hours of interactional data and conducted attitudinal interviews. From these data, we examined a family’s language policy (nuclear and extended family) and its influence on a child’s (Francesco, aged 17–30 months) language environment and acquisition of norms of usage. The juxtaposition of the attitudinal interviews of the adults in Francesco’s environment with the interactional data collected revealed numerous discrepancies between the adults’ expressed attitudes and their production. We argue that attitudes do not necessarily predict language choices and that the relationship between the two is more complicated than a cause-and-consequences one, in particular when these concern dialect usage. Rather, there is a dynamic link between attitudes and language choices as these are constantly (re)defined, negotiated and reconfigured during interaction.
We report the results from two experiments investigating how referential context information affects native and non-native readers’ interpretation of ambiguous relative clauses in sentences such as The journalist interviewed the assistant of the inspector who was looking very serious. The preceding discourse context was manipulated such that it provided two potential referents for either the first (the assistant) or the second (the inspector) of the two noun phrases that could potentially host the relative clause, thus biasing towards either an NP1 or an NP2 modification reading. The results from an offline comprehension task indicate that both native English speakers’ and German and Chinese-speaking ESL learners’ ultimate interpretation preferences were reliably influenced by the type of referential context. In contrast, in a corresponding self-paced-reading task we found that referential context information modulated only the non-native participants’ disambiguation preferences but not the native speakers’. Our results corroborate and extend previous findings suggesting that non-native comprehenders’ initial analysis of structurally ambiguous input is strongly influenced by biasing discourse information.
Missing from the body of literature on contact-induced phonological influence are studies that examine language variation as it occurs in speech production among members of a speech community. This study uses a corpus of naturally occurring Spanish/English code-switched discourse to determine whether cross-language phonological effects are evident in the data. Specifically, 2629 tokens of word-initial /d/ were analyzed in spontaneous interactions to identify the linguistic factors that condition the variable reduction (unreduced [d], reduced [ð]/Ø) of /d-/ in Spanish words. Cognate words (doctor) were found to reduce significantly less often than non-cognate words (después ‘after’). In addition, a significant effect is found for a novel, contextually informed measure that estimates words’ proportion of use in online contexts promoting reduction (Frequency in a Favorable Context). The greater a word’s prior exposure to online contexts promoting reduction, the greater the likelihood of reduced articulations. Indeed, this work argues that the distinction between cognates and non-cognates in fact emerges through this cumulative effect of significantly different patterns of use in discourse. Cognate /d/ words are used overall (considering speakers’ use of both English and Spanish) less often in contexts that promote reduction than non-cognate words. As a result of the diminished net exposure to reducing environments, per usage-based grammar, the lexical representations of cognate words have strengthened non-reduced exemplars ([d]). The distinct rates of variation for the word categories thus emerge from distinct usage patterns. This paper proposes such a focus on usage patterns within naturally occurring speech for phonological analyses within contact linguistics.
This paper offers an examination of morphosyntactic factors that are generally understood to measure grammatical integration—and therefore used to help determine the status of other-language-origin nouns as borrowings or code-switches—through the lens of discourse, semantics, and lexical patterns. A total of 820 lone English-origin nouns surrounded by otherwise Spanish discourse are compared to Spanish and English nouns from the recorded speech of the same bilingual speakers in New Mexico. The semantic domains most open to English-origin nouns include both those traditionally expected, such as technology, and those generally thought to be unborrowable, such as kinship terms. In the case of determiner patterning, lone English-origin nouns’ propensity to occur with indefinite articles or as bare is linked to its use in the predicating function. Regarding gender, the preference for masculine assignment for lone English-origin nouns is tied to both nonreferentiality and the general patterns found in Spanish. The impact is felt here not from English, but from the conventions of the local community. Among their many functions, these nouns are best suited in this community for naming kin, classifying individuals as belonging to a certain occupation, and creating verbal compounds. It is argued that the morphosyntactic patterns found reflect the community norms, in which English-origin nouns tend to perform certain discourse functions. Systematic quantitative analysis thus reveals the powerful role of discourse referentiality of nominal forms, in tandem with local practices.
Using the New Mexico Spanish-English Bilingual Corpus, the present paper examines the variable position of the 1sg Spanish pronoun yo—pre- versus post-verbal—to consider the effect that code-switching may have on structural change. In an analysis of close to 700 tokens of yo, a rate of 16% post-positioning is found, which is within the range of post-position in non-contact varieties and thus contraindicative of the convergence hypothesis, in accordance with which the almost exclusive use of preverbal subject pronouns in English would predict lower rates of post-verbal yo in a converged contact variety. Moreover, by testing factors hypothesized to account for choice of post-posing yo using multivariate analysis, it is shown that bilinguals display similar constraints on yo post-positioning in New Mexican Spanish as monolingual speakers of Spanish, providing stronger support for an anti-convergence account. Results are discussed in terms of bilingual parallel activation, syntactic priming, and construction grammar.
In this study, we test the hypothesis that code-switching leads to phonological convergence by examining voice onset time (VOT) realization in the spontaneous code-switched speech of New Mexican Spanish-English bilinguals. We find that average VOT duration values in New Mexican Spanish fall within the range typical of non-contact varieties of the language, while New Mexican English displays VOT values in the low range of typical non-contact English. When we examine the VOT values of Spanish- and English-language words at varying degrees of proximity to code-switch points, we find a similar asymmetry. In Spanish, no effect of recent code-switching is evident. In English, conversely, close proximity to code-switch points results in a significant reduction in VOT values, i.e. in the direction of Spanish. We argue that while the data studied here do not directly demonstrate a causal connection between code-switching and long-term phonological convergence, they would not be inconsistent with such a view. We discuss a number of possible causes for the observed asymmetry between Spanish and English.
This study examines the bilingual compound verb hacer ‘to do’+VERBEng, consisting of the Spanish verb hacer ‘do’ and a bare English infinitive (e.g. hacer smoke ‘to smoke’). In studying Spanish/English bilingual speech, hacer+VERBEng has received attention due to its linguistically hybrid nature. Examining 116 tokens of hacer+VERBEng from 12 speakers of the New Mexico Spanish-English Bilingual Corpus, we test the claim that this construction has developed out of a higher cognitive load or lexical gap experienced by bilingual speakers, create a discourse profile of the construction, and propose an overview of the bilingual behaviors that contribute to the emergence of this bilingual compound verb. The construction is not found in conjunction with significantly higher rates of disfluencies, which weakens the previously made assertions that it is produced to compensate for a lexical gap. We find that hacer+VERBEng is a productive bilingual construction in which hacer serves as a tense, aspect, and mood marker and the English infinitive provides the lexical content. Linguistic behavioral profiles reveal that combining languages within a single prosodic unit is correlated with higher rates of hacer+VERBEng.
Studies of code-switching in writing are very limited in comparison with the numerous investigations of this phenomenon in oral communication. Recent research has revealed that in text-based computer-mediated communication internet users bring into play the various languages available in their linguistic repertoire and, consequently, switch between them. In this case study, I investigate digital code-switching between Cypriot and Standard Greek, the two varieties of Greek spoken on the island of Cyprus. Following Auer’s conversation analytic approach and Gafaranga’s view that conversational structure coexists with social structure, I investigate code-switching in online interactions. The data to be analysed here, unlike those considered in most studies of code-switching, are written data, obtained from channel #Cyprus of Internet Relay Chat. The results suggest that code-switching in writing is influenced not only by macro-sociolinguistic factors, but they are also shaped by the medium- and social-specific characteristics of Internet Relay Chat. This, in turn, allows internet users to gain access to different roles and perform various identities within this online context.
Heritage speakers are individuals who were raised in a home where a language other than the dominant language of a given society was spoken. Heritage speakers are to some extent bilingual in both the language of their home and the dominant language. Only recently have linguists started examining heritage languages, languages that have not been completely acquired. In this article, I focus on features of heritage Polish spoken by "advanced high"1 bilinguals from the Chicago area. A special focus is put on lexical and structural features that differ from standard Polish as described by grammars of Polish. I demonstrate that the Polish language undergoes reduction in nominal morphology and displays different patterns of verbal morphology. Structural innovations are modelled on English structure; however, new independent phenomena are also observed. Thus, the article contributes to the discussion about the role of incomplete acquisition, language attrition and language interference in shaping heritage languages.
Based on the tenets of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, this research study investigated the private speech produced by 30 adult English/Spanish bilinguals while engaged in a problem-solving activity, with the objective of better understanding the regulatory role that each language plays in the bilingual mind. In order to obtain a spontaneous production of private speech, participants were unknowingly audio-recorded while working in a private room on 15 challenging questions in Spanish, which included problems of logic, mathematics, visual-spatial problems, and kinship questions. The 30 early bilinguals who participated were divided into three groups: The Spanish-dominant group, the English-dominant group, and the balanced group, who consisted of bilinguals who reported to be equally comfortable in both languages. Results showed that bilinguals’ dominant language played an important regulatory role in their verbalized thinking while the other language provided a complementary set of cognitive resources and strategies that were employed when needed.
This article reports an empirical research into the correlation between adult speakers’ communication strategic competence and their language proficiency by comparing Chinese-English bilinguals’ application of stalling devices in their L1 and L2 spoken discourse. Dörnyei and Kormos’ ((1998). Problem-solving mechanisms in L2 communication. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20, 349–385) taxonomy of communicative strategies is employed as the analytical framework for the present investigation. The qualitative observations reveal that the general categorical variations of stalling strategy in our participants’ L1 and L2 discourse are indistinguishable, manifesting the universality of linguistic communicative strategies. Yet, participants are found to be less proficient at utilizing L2 fillers than the L1 equivalents with respect to variation. Such phenomenon should be greatly attributed to language specificity of the lexicalized stalling devices and the paucity of authentic L2 stimuli the participants received. The quantitative results indicate that the frequency of stalling devices increases along with the decrease of the speakers’ automaticity of language processing. Specifically, the frequency of L2 stalling strategies is about two times higher than that of its L1 equivalents. The quantitative results further reinforce that L2 processing is less automatic than L1 processing. In brief, both the qualitative and quantitative findings evidence a tight correlation between the speakers’ communication strategic competence and their linguistic proficiency. Finally, some insights into the teaching of non-native stalling strategies for language learners are provided.
This paper examines the effects of English as a second language (L2) on Turkish as a first language (L1) in the domain of wh-scrambling, as formulated in the generative framework. Unlike English, Turkish allows wh-extractions out of islands under certain morphological conditions. The data come from 27 native Turkish speakers, who have immigrated to an English-speaking country at an adult age and used English as a dominant language. The results of an acceptability judgment task revealed the same tendencies in the attrition and monolingual control group towards rejection of certain grammatical wh-extractions. Thus, the findings implicate no L2 influence in L1 change.
This was a cross-sectional study of storytelling development in French–English bilinguals between four and 10 years in both languages. Measures of both spoken and gestural use were examined as a function of age. The results showed that the children’s spoken narrative abilities were related to age in both languages while their rates of gestures were not. The relationship between gesture use and narrative abilities was, at best, weak. These results suggest that fluent bilinguals develop narrative abilities in both languages simultaneously. We discussed the results of the present study in the light of ongoing research on the developmental relationship between speech and gesture in childhood.
This paper is a summary of the four papers presented by the invited panel on African multilingualism to ISB8. The presenters and the respective countries they represented were panel chair Charlyn Dyers (South Africa), Felix Banda (Zambia), Feliciano Chimbutane (Mozambique) and Omondi Oketch (Kenya). The four papers in this panel apply the notion of multilingualism as social practice to the urban African context in a post-modern era characterized by intense mobility, not only across spaces but also across linguistic and other semiotic systems. In particular, they reveal how identities are performed through harnessing multiple semiotic systems, different practices and modalities, and how different semiotic resources are adopted, reconstituted and adapted to different contexts and communication needs, leading to the transformation and reconstruction of everyday discourses.
This article reports on the intersection of African American English (AAE) and a variety of American Sign Language (ASL) used by Black signers and known as Black ASL. Based on an extensive videotaped corpus collected from 96 African American signers in the southern United States, we explore the conditions that led to the development of a separate African American variety and document its features. Starting in 1869, 17 states and the District of Columbia had separate schools or departments for Black Deaf children within already-established schools. The last school to desegregate was in Louisiana, in 1978. We filmed Black signers in six of the 17 states, in free conversation and interviews, and we also elicited lexical items. Signers were divided into two groups, those over 55 who attended segregated schools and signers under 35 who attended integrated schools. Of the eight linguistic features investigated, two result from the contact of Black ASL with spoken English: the mouthing of English words and the incorporation of African American words and phrases. Older signers who attended segregated schools mouth very little, while younger signers who attended integrated schools mouth as frequently as young white signers. The young Black signers also spontaneously produce and discuss words and phrases from AAE that have made their way into Black ASL, such as "Stop trippin’!", "My bad", and "Girl, please." The presence of these AAE features in Black ASL shows the effects of attendance in mainstreaming programs starting in the mid-1970s, including contact with hearing AAE speakers, and an increased focus on the learning of spoken English.
Integrating research on multilingualism and computer-mediated communication, this paper proposes the term ‘networked multilingualism’ and presents findings from a case study to explore its implications for the theorising of multilingualism. Networked multilingualism is a cover term for multilingual practices that are shaped by two interrelated processes: being networked, i.e. digitally connected to other individuals and groups, and being in the network, i.e. embedded in the global mediascape of the web. It encompasses everything language users do with the entire range of linguistic resources within three sets of constraints: mediation of written language by digital technologies, access to network resources, and orientation to networked audiences. The empirical part of the paper discusses the Facebook language practices of a small group of Greek-background secondary school students in a German city. Data collection follows an online ethnography approach, which combines systematic observation of online activities, collection and linguistic analysis of screen data, and data elicited through direct contact with users. Focusing on four weeks of discourse on profile walls, the analysis examines the participants’ linguistic repertoires, their language choices for genres of self-presentation and dialogic exchange, and the performance of multilingual talk online. The findings suggest that the students’ networked multilingual practices are individualised, genre-shaped, and based on wide and stratified repertoires.
Harmonious bilingual development is the experience of well-being in a language contact situation involving young children and their families. While so far no systematic ethnographic studies of harmonious bilingual development exist, the following constituting elements are proposed: the use of parent–child conversations employing basically a single language, children’s active use of two languages rather than just one, and children’s more or less equal proficiency in each language. The factors contributing to these elements most likely are positive attitudes to early bilingualism, discourse socialization patterns and the frequency with which children hear each language.
While some research investigating these factors has been initiated, a new theory- and practice-oriented research focus on harmonious bilingual development framed within the larger context of well-being research is needed for a deeper understanding of young children and their families’ positive experience with bilingual development and the factors that may foster it.
Multilingualism in indigenous language communities brings forth tensions and creativity related to language change. In this article, taking dynamic multilingual indigenous Sámi language practices as a focus of ethnographic and discourse analytical research, I examine rhizomatic discourses on changing language in multilingual Sámi spaces. Based on longitudinal research on multilingualism in Sámiland, I will argue that the interlinked discourses of endangerment, commodification and carnivalisation simultaneously circulate across Sámi spaces, and structure language practices and experiences. Furthermore, multilingual dynamics can lead to both contestation and creativity in language practices, and may call into question various established perceptions and definitions of language and of related concepts.
In this article data are presented that suggest that individual language learners may have different optimal times of the day for learning a foreign language. Learners were tested on vocabulary learning and retention at different times of the day. In addition, different components of language aptitude were tested. Two components of the language aptitude test show an effect of early risers (‘larks’) performing better in the morning than in the evening, and late risers (‘owls’) performing better in the evening than in the morning. It is argued that chronotype should be included as one of the individual differences components in second language development.
Mouthings and mouth gestures are omnipresent in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). Mouthings in NGT are mouth actions that have their origin in spoken Dutch, and are usually time aligned with the signs they co-occur with. Frequently, however, they spread over one or more adjacent signs, so that one mouthing co-occurs with multiple manual signs. We conducted a corpus study to explore how frequently this occurs in NGT and whether there is any sociolinguistic variation in the use of spreading. Further, we looked at the circumstances under which spreading occurs. Answers to these questions may give us insight into the prosodic structure of sign languages. We investigated a sample of the Corpus NGT containing 5929 mouthings by 46 participants. We found that spreading over an adjacent sign is independent of social factors. Further, mouthings that spread are longer than non-spreading mouthings, whether measured in syllables or in milliseconds. By using a relatively large amount of natural data, we succeeded in gaining more insight into the way mouth actions are utilised in sign languages.
In this article we address the issue of language and globalization by focusing on the use of international brand names and English in the linguistic landscape of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ethiopia has been at the margins of the world economy; however, in the past decade Addis Ababa has witnessed a promising emerging economy, with many new international corporations investing in the country. The linguistic landscape is increasingly marked by the use of English, not only in general signage but also through international brand names and advertising. Moreover, a curious phenomenon has evolved in which international brand names and logos are used locally and are imparted an Ethiopian identity. The article highlights a particular case of cloning an international brand that touches on the discourse of national identity and development. The use of both English and international brand names in the linguistic landscape is perceived by locals as prestigious, indexing their aspirations towards modernity in this capital of the global South, with the notion of mobility covering not only geographical movement but also movement on a social scale. In conclusion, we relate our findings to a theoretical approach that aims to capture language in late modernity.
Despite the rich societal multilingualism of the United States, the ideological construction of English dominance continues to cast a shadow over other languages. Among the mechanisms that contribute to this state of affairs (e.g. educational policy and conservative language activism), visual language use in public spaces plays a salient role. A growing body of linguistic landscape research highlights the centrality of visual environments in the discursive construction of multilingual settings. Drawing upon nexus analysis together with principles of geosemiotics, the present study explores the discursive processes through which a particular image of San Antonio’s linguistic sense of place, one of English dominance despite its demographic bilingualism, is constructed. Visual data were collected on San Antonio’s highway system, an extensive network that traverses the city and is lined with billboard signs and commercial establishments. Data analysis shows that a confluence of (trans)national, cultural and economic discourses mediates language choices on signs. English is normalized as an unmarked language for all aspects of the linguistic landscape, reproducing national language ideologies about the status of English in the United States. Spanish, in turn, is associated with transnational migration as well as limited community and family domains.
Using the example of the linguistic landscape of an indigenous Sámi village in northern Scandinavia, this article explores multilingualism in public signs located in public spaces of the village. Based on long-standing ethnographic and discourse analytical research on multilingualism in the spaces and practices in the peripheral locality of Sámiland, I will focus on the temporal and spatial dimensions of the signs. In this, Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope is applied. Two chronotopes are identified and examined with regard to language change, mobility and multilingualism in public spaces. It is argued that linguistic landscapes often highlight spatial normativity and creativity, as well as local semiotic interventions, all embedded in historical, political and economic conditions.
This article explores the linguistic landscape (LL) of a tourist town named Dingle located in the Southwest of Ireland. Building on recent theorizing in LL studies, where a discourse-analytical approach to LL data is promoted, the study uncovers a number of contesting language ideologies that circulate in the LL of Dingle. The contest involves two key actors, namely the State and the local community, who promote a number of discourse frames that show contesting language ideologies. On the one hand the State promotes an Andersonesque (Anderson, 1983) modernist ideology of ‘one Nation one language’, where Dingle is a key space where such an ideology can be safeguarded. While, on the other hand, local people promote a postmodernist ideology of multilingualism, in which the value of the Irish language is part of a wider bi/multilingual repertoire. This suggests that the LL can be viewed as a dynamic space that is significant in indexing and performing language ideologies that are continually being contested and renegotiated.
The basic characteristic of composite codeswitching is that the languages involved share responsibility for framing bilingual constituents. This paper points to evidence of this characteristic in the nature of morpheme distribution in mixed possessive constructions in Ewe–English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana. An Ewe semantic distinction between two types of possessive constructions is consistently neutralized when English possessum nominals are used instead of their Ewe counterparts, and the paper demonstrates that the neutralization of this distinction results from direct mapping of English-origin grammatical information about English nominals onto Ewe grammar. It explains that this mapping of information from one grammar onto another one is characteristic of composite codeswitching and that it is facilitated by the fact that language production is modular in the sense of Levelt ((1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) and Myers-Scotton ((1993). Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press; (2002). Contact linguistics: Bilingual encounters and grammatical outcomes. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press).
This article deals with contact phenomena between two languages of distinct branches of Niger-Congo in Lome, Togo. The contact between Kabiye and Ewe has manifested itself in terms of Ewe lexical insertions and borrowings in Kabiye. My study deals specifically with Ewe lexical insertions into Kabiye. The article highlights some aspects of Kabiye grammar, including tone (for marking tense and aspect in verbs), nouns and noun classes, adjectives and predicative adjectives with linking verbs, focus constructions, and serial verbs in the language. I find that, in areas where Kabiye and Ewe grammar are congruent, Ewe insertions are frequently used, with the insertions taking Kabiye morphology. But in areas where the two grammars diverge, insertions are infrequent and those that occur do not take Kabiye morphology.
Radio, in particular, the popular Asante Twi talk-radio format that emerged in the mid-1990s, provides a unique forum for analyzing the linguistic tensions of contemporary Ghana. Radio is a context where talk and debate are central; since language is foregrounded, anxieties and beliefs about what the use of a particular language indexes socially are thrown into stark relief. This paper draws on conversation analysis, information structure, and ethnography to make sense of the prevalence of intrasentential codeswitching into English in the context of predominantly Twi talk-radio debates. It proposes that switches into English mark new or salient information, and as such function as a pragmatic tool in radio discourse, allowing speakers to negotiate the conversational floor and metapragmatically frame the speech event. It is argued that English’s pragmatic force in this context is drawn from its ability to index a multivalent prestige born of contradictory sites of authority within contemporary Ghanaian life.
In this paper, it will be argued that the Akan spoken within the Ghanaian immigrant community in Bergamo is currently going through a transitional process that leads from code-switching to language mixing, as illustrated in Auer ((1999) From codeswitching via language mixing to fused lects: Towards a dynamic typology of bilingual speech. International Journal of Bilingualism, 3, 309–332). Analysis of excerpts drawn from a sample of face-to-face interactions, as well as formal interviews (comprising 27 hours of recordings in total), involving a selected group of Ghanaian immigrants in northern Italy will provide a useful starting point for discussing a distinguishing feature of the variety of Akan spoken by the above-mentioned immigrants – that is, the systematic insertion of English ‘chunks’ (e.g. single words or phrases) which do not appear to fulfil any pragmatic or discursive function. It will be argued that this ‘mixed’ variety of Akan is an expressive device of considerable importance within the community’s repertoire, which is regularly employed in informal spontaneous interactions not only by those community members who speak Akan as a lingua franca, but by Akan native speakers as well.
Logba, a Ghana-Togo Mountain language, operates an active noun class system in which there is agreement within the noun phrase (NP) and the subject NP is cross-referenced on the verb in a form that agrees with the class of the subject. As a minority language dominated by Ewe, a non-noun class language, it is exposed to the phenomenon of borrowing. In this paper, I examine the repercussions of borrowing in terms of nouns, locative verbs, grammatical items, and culturally loaded expressions. I will show that nouns borrowed from Ewe are allocated to a class with similar semantics, while verbs show the subject–noun cross-reference on them in a clause. Grammatical items—relativizers, conjunctions, and clause linkers—have forms very similar to those found in Ewe. Other forms of borrowing shown in this paper are proverbs, riddles, and emotional expressions calqued in Logba from Ewe. It is noted that there is generalization and simplification going on among younger native speakers of Logba. The paper concludes that there is a contact-induced change in progress in which a noun class system of a minority language is exposed to interference by a majority language.
One major controversy in the study of code-switching (CS) has been the treatment of structural regularities or patterns. Formal approaches attribute these patterns to syntactic constraints or models that are independent of socio-pragmatic or discourse factors, and hence they fall short of accounting for the variation and diachrony of CS constructions. Functional approaches call for due consideration of inter- and intra-speaker variation and discourse or processing factors, but they do not seem to go very far in pinpointing precisely what factors motivate a particular structural pattern. This paper attempts to integrate these two approaches in examining an emergent pattern in Cantonese–English CS in which postmodifying phrases are attested with English prepositions. The form of the construction may well be captured by some version of the Null Theory, but nonetheless it has little to say about why it is a new and variant pattern in Cantonese–English CS. This paper suggests that the construction is prompted by discourse factors such as salience, information status (i.e. given versus new) and heaviness (of the modifying noun phrase); typological differences (i.e. word order difference between Cantonese and English) and syntactic properties of words (such as prepositions) also have a role to play. Diachronically, this paper suggests that the construction evolves from a continuous English noun phrase with a further switch, which this paper terms "reinsertion", within this noun phrase. Variants and possible changes of this postmodifier construction are also discussed in the light of "reinsertion" and "schematization".
This study examines monolingual and multilingual individuals’ discrimination of stop consonants in a language to which they had never been exposed: Korean. If bilingualism leads to increased flexibility in phonological categorization, we may see a broad-based bilingual advantage for phoneme discrimination. Using a Korean phoneme discrimination task, we compared 56 adults in four groups: monolingual English, bilingual Spanish, bilingual Armenian, and trilingual. Findings indicate that Spanish–English bilingual individuals scored no better than English monolinguals, and lower than Armenian–English bilingual individuals. In this case, the advantage from early childhood non-English exposure or current bilingualism was found to be specific only to languages with similar phonemic categories. This supports a narrow first/second language to third language transfer view of phoneme discrimination skills.
Previous studies have shown that bilinguals have greater control over attentional resources than monolinguals in nonverbal tasks, perhaps reflecting domain-general enhancements of executive functioning (EF). Most studies of this bilingual advantage have used tasks with visual stimuli whereas fewer studies have examined attentional control in bilinguals in auditory tasks. We studied components of EF in two Go/No-Go auditory tasks with (1) nonverbal auditory stimuli and (2) verbal auditory stimuli in 5-year-old Spanish–English bilingual (n = 30) and English-speaking monolingual (n = 30) children matched on age, gender, short-term memory (digits forward subtest), and early reading skills (phoneme awareness and letter naming). The Go/No-Go tasks were modeled after a continuous performance task (CPT) (Mahone, Pillion, & Hiemenz, 2001) and included additional blocks of trials to measure the effects of switching targets. The bilingual children made fewer errors and had shorter reaction times (RTs) in the second block of the nonverbal auditory tasks than the monolinguals, but there were no differences on the verbal auditory task. Our results suggest that early bilingualism may confer advantages in young children for responding to nonverbal auditory stimuli under conditions that require cognitive flexibility.
In a picture naming study, we examined cross-language activation during speech production in three groups of trilinguals: L3-immersed German–English–Dutch, non-L3-immersed Dutch–English–German, and L3-immersed Russian–English–German trilinguals. All trilinguals named pictures with cognate and non-cognate names in their L2 and their L3. Specifically, we examined cognate effects in same-script trilinguals who were either immersed or not immersed in their L3 and trilinguals whose first language (Russian) differs in script from their other two languages (German, English) to address the questions (1) whether, as non-target language knowledge is co-activated, cognate effects accrue across languages during word production, and (2) whether immersion in L3 is a modulating factor in cross-language activation. We found cognate facilitation in the same-script trilinguals across all languages, although with patterns modulated by the trilinguals’ L3-immersion status and L3 proficiency, corroborating and extending earlier findings in bilingual adults and children. Critically, we also found cognate effects in the different-script trilinguals when the pictures had cognate names in all three languages, indicating that the L1 Russian phonology was activated during naming in L2 English when L3 German was also present, and vice versa.
Previous research on Arabic heritage speakers points to notable variability in the language proficiencies of Arabic heritage speakers, both as individuals and as groups (Albirini & Benmamoun, 2012; Albirini, Benmamoun, & Saadah, 2011). This study examines the language proficiencies of Egyptian and Palestinian heritage speakers, assesses the relationship between their L1 proficiency levels and other linguistic, socio-affective, socio-contextual, and demographic factors, and explores the relative significance of these factors in determining proficiency in heritage Arabic. A total of 20 Egyptian and 20 Palestinian heritage speakers completed an oral narrative that was used for assessing three dimensions of their language proficiencies, namely fluency, grammatical accuracy, and syntactic complexity. In addition, the participants filled in a 182-item questionnaire about the factors potentially influencing their heritage language skills, including language input, language use, language attitudes, ethnic identity, family role, community support, school, and demographics. The study also involved follow-up interviews with a sample of five Palestinian and five Egyptian participants.
The results showed that the Palestinian speakers outperformed their Egyptian counterparts in terms of language fluency, accuracy, complexity, and overall proficiency. Pearson and Spearman correlations indicated that language use, language input, family role, community support, and parents’ language correlate positively with language proficiency. Multiple regression analyses showed that language use (in terms of frequency, range, and contexts) is the only significant predictor of the variability in heritage language proficiency. Lastly, the interviews revealed that the Palestinian heritage speakers’ linguistic advantage over their Egyptian counterparts might be attributed to their commitment to Arabic as a main marker of their heritage and identity, the encouragement of their families to maintain their heritage language, and the wider social networks to which they had access. The implications of the study are discussed.
This article focuses on the development of sociolinguistic competence in a second language, (here, French being acquired by young Anglo-Montrealers) in a naturalistic context where the target language is part of daily life. Sociolinguistic competence is assessed through analysis of Anglo-Montrealers’ use of a morphosyntactic variable, Future Temporal Reference (FTR), in both French and English. Variationist analyses reveal that Anglo-Montrealers possess distinct FTR variation systems for each of the languages of their linguistic repertoire. Results show that substantial contact with native speakers is a necessary condition for detailed and complete mastery of target sociolinguistic variation, in particular because the rules that govern it are rarely, if ever, explicitly taught.
The "cognate facilitation effect" refers to the advantage cognate words have over non-cognates in speed of recognition and production of words during the performance of multiple oral and written language tasks. It has been demonstrated that bilinguals produce and recognize cognates faster than non-cognates. Questions remain about the variables affecting the cognate facilitation effect. The present study investigated whether naming ability in a relatively large sample of balanced and non-balanced Spanish–English bilinguals is affected by the cognate status of the target words and whether the magnitude of this effect is influenced by bilinguals’ relative levels of proficiency in their two languages. One hundred and three (53 balanced, 50 non-balanced) participants (mean age= 42.52; SD =19.09) from South Florida were administered the Boston Naming Test (BNT) in Spanish and English. Half of the sample received the English version first and the other half the Spanish version first. Results showed that whereas the cognate effect in the balanced bilinguals is similar in both languages, the non-balanced group showed a more prominent cognate effect in the non-preferred language. Current results may contribute to the understanding of language representation in bilinguals. Results demonstrated that the retrieval of words in the BNT is influenced by the knowledge of another language and that this effect seems to be mediated by how balanced the bilingual is.
We compared 121 native and 114 non-native speakers of Dutch (with 35 different first languages) on four digit-span tasks, varying modality (visual/auditory) and direction (forward/backward). An interaction was observed between nativeness and modality, such that, while natives performed better than the non-natives on the auditory tasks (which were performed in the non-natives’ second language), performance on the visual tasks (which was performed in participants’ dominant language) did not significantly differ between natives and non-natives. The interaction between nativeness and modality disappeared when the data were corrected for Dutch proficiency. Correction for Dutch proficiency elevated non-native speakers’ scores on the auditory tasks, without altering the non-natives’ digit-span rank order. Despite considerable differences in mean length of the digit names zero to nine in the non-natives’ first languages, these differences were not significantly correlated with their visual digit-span scores. While further research is needed on the sources of variation in digit-span performance, we recommend the use of the visual digit-span task (forward or backward) for cross-linguistic research and advise researchers to be aware of the association between language proficiency and verbal working-memory performance.
In this paper the letters of bilingual artists are proposed as a new source of evidence for understanding the relationship of bilinguality with individual identity. This approach is first situated within a more qualitative tradition in sociolinguistics, which allows the speaker’s individuality to be understood in more depth. Thanks to having two modes of expression, linguistic and artistic, bimodal bilinguals provide new insights into the impact of being immersed in a new culture and language. A sample of the correspondence of two 19th century bicultural and bilingual artists, Lucien Pissarro and Vincent van Gogh, is analysed. Comparisons are made between their linguistic style, especially their code-switching, and their biculturality as manifested in the artistic field. Their works, like their use of language, show the intermingling of influences of their culture of origin and that of their adoption. It is suggested on the basis of this study that investigating bimodal bilingualism may provide a bridge to help us understand the connections between language, identities and the way different cultural experiences are brought together.
Metrolingualism can be defined as the contemporary practice of creative uses, or mixing, of different linguistic codes in predominantly urban contexts, transcending established social, cultural, political and historical boundaries, identities and ideologies (Otsuiji & Pennycook, 2010). The present paper examines how this term can be applied to theorizing instances of contemporary text art that combine two or more languages, or that transform known linguistic codes into ‘fake’ or fantasy ones. The paper extends the scope of metrolingualism beyond multilingualism and includes a multimodal dimension, the mixing of genres, styles, accents, texts’ materiality, as well as their emplacement and pragmatic relevance. Finally, the paper suggests a reframing of metrolingualism as a manifestation of heteroglossia. International multimedia and performance artists whose work is analysed include Laurie Anderson, Xu Bing, Wenda Gu, Song Dong, Zhang Peili and Claire Fontaine.
This study aims to investigate whether the representation of a third language in the mind provides an advantage in executive control processes compared to bilinguals. To this end 10 high proficient bilingual Turkish–English and 10 high proficient trilingual Turkish–English–German speakers were given a language control demanding task and participants’ response times (RTs) and the accuracy of their responses were analyzed. The results showed that the bilingual group responded to their L2 (English) statistically slower than their L1 (Turkish) while the trilingual group did not show any difference in RTs in their three languages. It is also found that the trilingual participants were far more accurate in their responses. Based on these results it is hypothesized that a third language system represented in the mind might have the effect of promoting experience or regulation costs of the executive control system.
This article examines the competence of heritage speakers of Portuguese living in Germany with respect to clitic placement in Portuguese by comparing their performance with that of monolingual speakers of the same age (7–15 years of age) in a test designed to elicit oral production data. The results of the study indicate that the heritage speakers go through stages in the acquisition of clitic placement that are similar to those of monolingual acquirers even though they take longer to attain the target grammar.
The particular contribution of metasyntactic ability (i.e., the ability to consciously reflect about the syntactic aspects of language and intentionally to control grammatical rules) to second language reading skills is still not clear. While some studies concluded that metasyntactic ability contributes to reading among non-native speakers (NNS), others did not observe any particular contribution of that specific metalinguistic ability among NNS, despite showing a predictive value for their native speaker control group. Methodological aspects might explain these conflicting results, namely the target population, the measurement of metasyntactic ability, and the reading skill examined. The present study was set out to verify whether the particular contribution of metasyntactic ability to French reading comprehension would be the same among native and non-native upper-elementary children. A cross-sectional study was carried out in which 73 children (37 native and 36 non native speakers of French) were given syntactic, metasyntactic, receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension and phonological memory tasks. As in previous studies, results of the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) first revealed that the NNSs of French participants obtained lower MSA results than the native speaker children. However, results from the multiple regressions showed that MSA accounted for a significant part of variation in L2 reading among the native as well as among the NNS children and that language group was not a significant factor. This indicates that the weight of each variable, including metasyntactic ability, did not vary according to language status.
In the domain of language and audition, studies have shown large individual differences, within the normal range (i.e. in healthy, non-expert individuals), in performance on tasks involving speech sound processing, vocabulary knowledge, and reading, these in both monolingual and bilingual participants and in native and non-native language contexts. These individual differences have often been related to individual differences in brain structure. Evidence for structural differences is especially striking since brain structure can be assumed to be more stable, or less malleable, than brain function. Brain function, on the other hand, can be expected to change, or be plastic, after only very short periods of training/learning. The present paper provides a review of studies that have investigated the brain structural correlates of normative individual differences in aspects of language-related performance, these spanning a hierarchy in terms of the underlying complexity of processing and brain networks involved. Specifically, the review is structured so as to describe work examining the following domains, which involve progressively increasing levels of complexity in terms of the posited perceptual/cognitive sub-functions involved: 1) lower-level acoustic processing; 2) phonetic processing, including non-native speech sound learning, learning to use pitch information linguistically, non-native speech sound articulation, and phonetic expertise; 3) working memory for verbal and for pitch information; 4) semantics, in the context of lexical knowledge and of semantic memory; 5) reading; 6) syntax, both natural and artificial; 7) bilingualism; and finally 8) executive control of language in the contexts of fluency and of speech-in-noise processing. Results are discussed and synthesized in the context of lower to higher-level brain regions thought to be functionally involved in these respective domains, which are very often, if not always, the very ones that structurally partly predict domain-specific performance.
This article offers insights into how multilingual resources such as language mixing can be used in theater to address power relations such as, for instance, domination, resistance and empowerment. Three plays by Chicana playwright Cherríe Moraga (Giving up the ghost, Heroes and saints, and Shadow of a man) will be used to illustrate language mixing in Chicano theater. Moraga’s work has been selected since she is regarded as a representative of Chicano theater both by people within and by people outside the Chicano community.
Chicano theater arose in the United States during the 1960s as an act of resistance. The aim was to empower Chicanos/Mexican Americans by informing them about their rights in the society in which they resided. Chicano theater has thus since its inception been linked to issues of power.
Theoretically, this article builds upon philosopher Michel Foucault’s view of power, which fits well with the study of Chicano theater since it acknowledges that power exists in all social relations and is negotiated in each relation and context. Foucault’s view of power also asserts that power and resistance go hand in hand. This, then, can be translated to the Chicano context, where struggles take place on different levels in order to resist power. Chicano theater, also referred to by Moraga as "theater of resistance" is one such form of resistance. However, power is not merely resisted. It is also reproduced in a new form. Foucault’s view of power and resistance and his emphasis on the productive functions of power allow for a possibility of empowerment.
This study examined contribution of morphological awareness to reading comprehension in two typologically diverse languages, focusing on young Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) readers in China. It was particularly interested in how cross-linguistic similarities and variations in morphological awareness affected its transfer in Chinese–English biliteracy acquisition. Grades 5 and 6 children were measured in compound awareness and reading comprehension in English, and compound awareness, radical awareness, and reading comprehension in Chinese. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that compound awareness contributed to reading comprehension within both Chinese and English. In addition, over and above English compound awareness and Chinese reading comprehension, Chinese compound awareness, but not radical awareness, explained a unique amount of variance in English reading comprehension. After Chinese compound awareness was controlled for, English compound awareness, however, did not make a significant contribution to Chinese reading comprehension. These findings were discussed in light of the common and language/script-dependent aspects of morphological awareness in Chinese and English and the context of biliteracy acquisition.
This paper explores bi-musicality in modern Japan, and compares it with bilinguality at societal and individual levels. It considers the usefulness and limitations of the comparison of language and music. It establishes a model of musical competence as a preliminary to considering bi-musical competence, and schematizes the differences between Japanese and Western musical cultures for this purpose. In considering the relevance of bilingualism to the development of bi-musicality as an aspect of bi-culturality, I will argue that bilingualism as such is not so relevant to Japanese music, because early in Japan’s modern period Western music was effectively ‘translated’ into Japanese culture. The application of the concept of bi-musicality to music in modern Japan offers a new perspective on Japan’s musical modernity.
The discussion will focus first on the societal level, that is, Japan as a bi-musical culture. Then some individual case studies will be presented of people whose bi-musicality has been central to their musical activity. This will lead to some tentative conclusions about the extent and nature of bi-musicality in Japan.
Members of the Arab minority in Israel comprise about 20% of the Israeli population and differ from the Jewish majority in their nationality, religion and language. Though legally enjoying equal rights, they suffer discrimination in a variety of areas. Relationships between Jews and Arabs have been conflictual since long before Israel’s establishment as an independent state, and to this day are marked by suspicion and at times hostility. For most Arabs who are citizens of Israel, their sense of identity is complex and often described as placing them "between hammer and anvil" due to their unique position within Israeli society, their connectedness to the Palestinian cause and their relationship with the surrounding Arab countries. This identity also involves linguistic aspects: Arabs in Israel speak Arabic as their first language and study in a separate educational system in Arabic. Hebrew, the language of the Jewish majority, is studied as a second language from second grade onwards and matriculation exams in Hebrew are compulsory. Israeli Arabs largely master Hebrew, though many view it as a language of conflict or even of oppression. This paper deals with four Israeli Arab novelists and poets who chose to write in Hebrew, focusing on interfaces of linguistic, sociological, psychological and political aspects and on patterns of language usage in their writings. Their works suggests a new channel for exploring the broader context of Jewish–Arab relationships in Israeli society and contributes new insights on the potential of the linguistic angle to shed light on minority–majority relationships.
Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou (2007) propose the Interpretability Hypothesis (IH), according to which uninterpretable features present an insurmountable difficulty in adult second language acquisition. The experimental study supporting the IH examines Greek native speakers’ knowledge of gaps versus resumptive pronouns in English wh-movement. A crucial assumption is that Greek allows resumptives optionally. Alexopoulou and Keller’s (2002, 2007) findings confirm that assumption. In our replication of Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou’s study, we divide Spanish native speakers into those who accept resumptives and those who do not; then we look at their acceptance of gaps and resumptives in English. The results indicate that both groups of advanced learners, those that do and those that don’t have resumptives in their individual grammars, have acquired the ungrammaticality of resumptives in English, although there may be lingering native language effects. The effects of d-linking, animacy, syntactic function of the resumptive/gap (subject vs. object), and presence of the complementizer that are also examined.
The present study comprises a phonetic analysis of the lateral phoneme /l/ in the first (L1) and second language (L2) of 10 late German–English bilinguals. The primary objective of the study was to compare the predictive power of dynamic systems theory with that of maturational constraints through a phonetic investigation of L1 attrition in the lateral phoneme /l/ of the late bilinguals.
The results revealed L1 attrition in the lateral phoneme /l/, as well as a high degree of interpersonal and intrapersonal variation. These patterns are discussed in relation to dynamic systems theory and maturational constraints. Moreover, the degree of permanency of L1 attrition is discussed in relation to methodological considerations in studies on L1 attrition. It is proposed that maturational constraints are insufficient in explaining the results and that bilingual language development can be more adequately explained through dynamic systems theory, which explicitly incorporates a multitude of predictor variables across the lifespan, in addition to age constraints.
This paper discusses the relationship of swearing and slang to code-switching based on data obtained in a Basque–Spanish language contact situation. The study is based on 22 hours of recorded material of 22 Basque bilinguals, both L1 and L2 Basque speakers. In Greater Bilbao, even the bilinguals who do not frequently code-switch shift to Spanish to introduce slang or swear words to otherwise Basque discourse. The susceptibility of these elements to switching is examined from structural, discursive and sociolinguistic points of view. The phenomena are understood to strengthen one another: when different stylistic and stance-taking devices co-occur, they become even more salient, thus underlining the effect for which they were introduced to the conversation.
This study examines the prosody of focus in the Spanish of 16 Quechua-Spanish bilinguals near Cusco, Peru. Data come from a dialogue game that involved noun phrases consisting of a noun and an adjective. The questions in the game elicited broad focus, contrastive focus on the noun (non-final position) and contrastive focus on the adjective (final position). The phonetic analysis in Praat included peak alignment, peak height, local range and duration of the stressed syllable and word. The study revealed that Cusco Spanish differs from other Spanish varieties. In other Spanish varieties, contrastive focus is marked by early peak alignment, whereas broad focus involves a late peak on the non-final word. Furthermore, in other Spanish varieties contrastive focus is indicated by a higher F0 maximum, a wider local range, post-focal pitch reduction and a longer duration of the stressed syllable/word. For Cusco Spanish no phonological contrast between early and late peak alignment was found. However, peak alignment on the adjective in contrastive focus was significantly earlier than in the two other contexts. For women, similar results were found for the noun in contrastive focus. An additional prominence-lending feature marking contrastive focus concerned duration of the final word. Furthermore, the results revealed a higher F0 maximum for broad focus than for contrastive focus. The findings suggest a prosodic change, which is possibly due to contact with Quechua. The study contributes to research on information structure, prosody and contact-induced language change.
Over the past several years, the field of bilingual speech perception has seen a substantial increase in both the number of publications and in the amount of interest directed at its findings. Consequently, the time is ripe to assess the state of the field, what we have accomplished and where we have yet to go. Although we cannot capture the full state of the field in the space of this paper, we hope to summarize the major trends that have led to the current state and take stock of its future directions. To that end, we focus our review on the relative merits of single phonemes versus whole words and phrases when investigating bilingual speech, the efficacy of the different training paradigms that have been attempted and we focus, in particular, on the role of individual differences in predicting learning outcomes. We conclude our review by highlighting recent developments demonstrating that identifying individual differences in ability pre-training can result in more efficacious training paradigms. Goals for future research are also discussed.
Early acquisition of a second language influences the development of language abilities and cognitive functions. In the present study, we used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to investigate the impact of early bilingualism on the organization of the cortical language network during sentence production. Two groups of adult multilinguals, proficient in three languages, were tested on a narrative task; early multilinguals acquired the second language before the age of three years, late multilinguals after the age of nine. All participants learned a third language after nine years of age. Comparison of the two groups revealed substantial differences in language-related brain activity for early as well as late acquired languages. Most importantly, early multilinguals preferentially activated a fronto-striatal network in the left hemisphere, whereas the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) was activated to a lesser degree than in late multilinguals. The same brain regions were highlighted in previous studies when a non-target language had to be controlled. Hence the engagement of language control in adult early multilinguals appears to be influenced by the specific learning and acquisition conditions during early childhood. Remarkably, our results reveal that the functional control of early and subsequently later acquired languages is similarly affected, suggesting that language experience has a pervasive influence into adulthood. As such, our findings extend the current understanding of control functions in multilinguals.
Individuals who develop bilingually typically outperform monolinguals on tests of executive functions. This advantage likely reflects enhanced prefrontal function, but the mechanisms that underlie this improvement are still poorly understood. This article describes a theory on the nature of the neural underpinnings of improved executive function in bilinguals. Specifically, we propose that growing up in a bilingual environment trains a gating system in the striatum that flexibly routes information to the prefrontal cortex. This article is divided into three sections. Firstly, literature establishing a three-way connection between bilingualism, executive function, and fronto-striatal loops is summarized. Secondly, a computational model of information processing in the basal ganglia is described, illustrating how the striatal nuclei function to transfer information between cortical regions under prerequisite conditions. Finally, this model is extended to describe how bilingualism may "train the brain," enabling improved performance under conditions of competitive information selection during information transfer. Theoretical implications and predictions of this theory are discussed.
Language mode theory proposes that language activation can span from a monolingual mode (predominant activation of one language) to bilingual mode (both languages activated). While some argue that linguistic performance is influenced by the language mode the bilingual speaker is in, others have found that language mode activation has no affect on performance. We show that changes in language mode can influence bilinguals’ language processing. Spanish–English bilinguals with both languages active (bilingual mode) took longer to reject non-words than Spanish–English bilinguals with one language active (monolingual English mode) and English monolinguals. In addition, reaction times for non-words were longer the more Spanish weighted the bilinguals were, with a linear relationship between non-word reaction times and bilingual dominance. Results can be best described by extending the Bilingual Model of Lexical Access of speech perception to reading.
The factor attitude is generally considered to be among the most influential for first language (L1) attrition. Nevertheless, empirical validations have proven difficult to establish. While some studies could not find clear links between measures of attitude and L1 attrition (Hulsen, 2000; Yagmur, 1997), others showed that attitudes generated from exceptional life events strongly influenced attrition (Schmid, 2002) and that pragmatic vs. ideological motivation to emigrate and ensuing attitudes were clearly linked to L1 attrition (Ben-Rafael & Schmid, 2007). A closer examination of these studies yields a noteworthy pattern: those studies that relied on questionnaires (Hulsen, 2000, Yagmur, 1997) seemed to find no straight correlations between attitude and L1 performance, while the studies that used interviews (Ben-Rafael & Schmid, 2007; Schmid, 2002) established a clearer link between the two. The present study explores the impact of attitude – as measured through both questionnaires and interviews – on L1 attrition and second language (L2) proficiency. The quantitative analysis revealed partially significant results, thus suggesting that the factor attitude would have a limited impact on L1 attrition. Individual qualitative analyses, on the other hand, revealed important links between attitudes and the migrants’ language proficiency profiles. The article argues for a combination of methodological approaches in the study of L1 attrition and underlines the idea that individual-level analyses are well suited to capture the non-linearity of attitude and its impact on L1 attrition. These conclusions fit well with a Dynamic Systems Theory perspective in relation to the constant flux of attitude perceptions and their unpredictable role in attrition (de Bot, Lowie & Verspoor, 2007).
The present paper will present an overview of the state of the art in language attrition research, attempting to provide an integrated picture of the attrition process in the light of Dynamic Systems Theory. Recent findings suggest that a fully developed L1 system is a powerful attractor state, as defined by Dynamic Systems Theory. Once this state has been attained, L2 influence or activation problems may cause small temporary shifts to the overall system, but it will generally settle back to its original state. Such a view could explain the dramatic differences observed between the L1 knowledge of pre- and post-puberty migrants. While speakers who have attained school age, but not puberty, will generally be able to use most grammatical features of their L1 in a target-like way, this knowledge may not yet have ‘settled’ into the mature attractor state, and therefore remain vulnerable to attrition.
This paper provides a dynamic perspective on the linguistic development of adult bilinguals in an L2 environment, and an empirical test for the principles formulated within a dynamic systems approach to L1 attrition. It presents a qualitative analysis of the personal narratives of the post-migratory linguistic development of 27 adult German–English bilinguals residing in Ireland, with particular focus on two participants’ stories. Participants responded to a comprehensive sociolinguistic questionnaire, providing self-ratings of current and past language proficiency in all their languages, and reflecting on the processes of and factors impacting on L2 acquisition and L1 attrition in the L2 environment. These data are complemented by proficiency data elicited with a test battery in L1 German and L2 English. Analyses revealed that most participants have succeeded both in acquiring English to a high level, and in maintaining German. However, other L2s as a rule show a pattern of decline. The results are discussed with recourse to dynamic conceptions of multilingual development.
How stable or how permeable to attrition are a multilingual’s first and second languages during life periods characterized by dynamic changes in language-use frequencies? This longitudinal study sheds some light on this issue by investigating changing patterns in a multilingual speaker’s tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states. Over a period of 10 years, the multilingual recorded more than 100 TOT states, together with 400 non-target word associations, as they occurred with words from the speaker’s five languages (L1 German, L2 Russian, L3 English, L4 Spanish, and L5 Portuguese). During the period, the L1 was consistently used less than the L3 and L4, providing a setting in which L1 attrition might occur. Data were analyzed with respect to the changing frequencies of TOT state occurrence in the different languages, the contribution of each language to the word associations generated during word search, the typological relatedness of targets and associates, and the linguistic context of initial learning of each language. Rates of TOT states and percentages of cross-language word associations and within-language word associations fluctuated in response to dynamic patterns of language use and maintenance, demonstrating the value of data on word-retrieval failure for studies of language attrition. The data reveal that the speaker’s L1 appeared to gain stability after an early period suggestive of attrition, despite low frequency of use overall. This finding supports the view that the L1 is exceptional, highly resistant to attrition, but also suggests that temporary impairment of L1 can occur when a multilingual speaker’s overall set of interacting language systems comes out of balance.
Drawing from Sagarra & Herschensohn (2010, 2011), we evaluate current approaches to grammatical representation and processing of L2 gender and number agreement in Spanish determiner phrases (DPs), some advocating incomplete acquisition and computation of L2 grammatical features and others claiming native-like representation and computation of new grammatical values. Testing Spanish monolinguals, beginning and intermediate L2 learners, we evaluate comprehension data with a moving window paradigm and a grammaticality judgment task to investigate whether late learners of ungendered L1s can gain native-like behavioral patterns of sensitivity to grammatical gender and number agreement violations. We also consider the additional factors of proficiency level (beginners vs. intermediates) and processing cost (animate vs. inanimate nouns; gender vs. number agreement). Moving window and grammaticality judgment data reveal that intermediates, but not beginners, show qualitatively similar reactions to monolinguals (gender and number concord/discord distinctions), confirming the importance of proficiency while suggesting native-like processing by L2 learners. They also show that both grammatical (gender, number) and semantic (animacy) features differentially impact concord processing for both natives and L2 learners, and that working memory plays a role in developing L2 processing skills.
This study compares gender acquisition within determiner phrases between monolingual German children and bilingual children acquiring a Romance language (French, Spanish, Italian) and German or two Romance languages simultaneously. Furthermore, the two languages within the bilingual children are compared to one another with respect to the acquisition of gender. The influence of different factors on gender acquisition is discussed: language dominance, transparency of gender marking and/or reliability of gender cues in the respective languages. It shows that bilingual children can acquire the gender systems in both languages just as monolinguals and that bilingualism per se does not have a delaying effect. In bilingual children, as in monolingual children, German is most problematic in terms of gender acquisition. French represents only slightly more problems than Spanish and Italian, the latter two-gender systems being acquired with ease. Since adult phonological gender rules are characterized by their rather low validity in German and in French, lower accuracy with German gender indicates that the way how gender is marked in the languages influences acquisition more than the validity of gender rules; in German and not in French, gender marking is intertwined with case and number markings. Although our results suggest that gender accuracy depends on the language acquired, some children do not fit into the expected pattern of gender acquisition with respect to the analysed languages. Interestingly, all these children show a language imbalance. Therefore, we claim that the children’s gender accuracy can be predicted on the basis of the language acquired, but language dominance can blur this ranking. Interestingly, it is not the case that gender is delayed in the weak language of the bilingual children; language imbalance has the effect that the child may not tend towards the predicted side of an accuracy ranking (for the weaker language). A further result of this study is that accuracy on neuter gender is lower in bilingual German than in monolingual German, suggesting that the fact that the bilingual children acquire a two-gender system simultaneously with a three-gender system has a delaying effect for target-like neuter marking.
The nature and extent of the impact of language transfer in majority–minority language contexts have been widely debated in both second- and heritage-language acquisition. This study examines four linguistic areas in three oral narratives collected from Egyptian and Palestinian heritage speakers in the United States (namely, plural and dual morphology, possessive constructions, and restrictive relative clauses), with a special focus on how the second language (English) influences the structure and use of these areas in connected discourse. In addition, the study examines the relationship between second-language transfer and the incompleteness and attrition of heritage Arabic. The findings show that heritage speakers have various gaps in their knowledge of the examined areas, particularly in forms and patterns that diverge from their counterparts in their dominant L2. The results also suggest that transfer effects are restricted to specific forms that are marked (e.g. broken plurals), infrequent (duals), or characterized by processing difficulty (as seems to be the case with the dependencies in the relative clauses). Moreover, transfer effects are intimately related to both the attrition and incomplete acquisition of the speakers’ knowledge of the four areas under study. The implications of the study for heritage language research are discussed.
In this article, we sought to investigate the acquisition of gender features by two Basque–Spanish bilingual children when compared to a Spanish monolingual child. Basque is a language that lacks gender features and nominal agreement, whereas Spanish classifies nouns into two classes, that is, masculine and feminine, and has determiner phrase internal agreement. The internal architecture of Basque and Spanish differ on two crucial ways: the presence or absence of agreement and the presence or absence of the syntactic projection ClassP. Hence, the acquisition of gender sheds some light on the internal architecture of the determiner phrase. The studies on gender acquisition by Spanish monolinguals or bilinguals of any combination are not numerous. For this reason, we provide a detailed description of gender development and a thorough analysis of gender errors by a monolingual Spanish child and two Basque–Spanish bilinguals. This study shows that the masculine is not the default gender, neither for the monolingual child analysed nor for bilinguals because both groups overgeneralize masculine as well as feminine. Moreover, none of the children exclusively use the masculine with all nouns at a first stage to converge to target grammar in a subsequent stage. Basque–Spanish bilinguals use masculine determiners with feminine nouns in the majority of contexts from the outset of language acquisition, whereas the monolingual child performs the opposite way. Interestingly, bilinguals require more time to acquire the intricacies of Spanish gender. In other words, they make gender errors even at advanced stages of development, when the monolingual Spanish child studied in this article presents a target-like gender performance. The analysed data show that Basque influences Spanish, resulting in language delay because of the internal architecture of the determiner phrase and to a minor extent by the surface overlap between Spanish and Basque. However, our interpretation is cautious because of the scarcity of such examples and the limited corpus available.
Global age of acquisition of L1 and L2 in individual speakers has been investigated as a deterministic factor in nativelikeness of grammatical knowledge and lexical processing. The age of acquisition of individual words has also been shown to affect both native and nonnative lexical access. Given the centrality of the lexicon to language acquisition and use, this study investigated which of these variables is most relevant and how these two variables may potentially interact during lexical access of the less dominant language in bilinguals. A group of English-speaking late L2 learners of Spanish and a group of early bilingual speakers who were exposed to Spanish as an L1 at home and learned English in childhood (heritage speakers) completed a lexical decision task in Spanish and an English–Spanish translation decision task. The performance of the two groups, which vary on global age of acquisition of Spanish, but not on language dominance, was compared. The results indicated no differences in the overall accuracy of lexical access according to global age of acquisition of L1 and L2, though the L2 learners responded more quickly than the heritage speakers in both tasks. The results differed within each participant group depending on word age of acquisition, with heritage speakers showing a speed and accuracy advantage for words learned early in L1 Spanish and L2 learners showing an advantage for words learned early in L2 Spanish. Based on these findings, it is argued that it is the language experience along with word age of acquisition that determines lexical processing of the weaker language, whether in L1 or L2.
The present study investigates the link between immigration, multilingualism, acculturation and personality profiles (as measured by the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire) of 193 residents in Israel. Participants born in Israel tended to score higher on Emotional Stability than those born abroad. Participants with one immigrant parent (but not two) scored higher on Cultural Empathy, Open-mindedness and Social Initiative. Participants who had become dominant in Hebrew as a foreign language scored lower on Emotional Stability than Hebrew L1-dominant participants. The number of languages known by participants was not linked to their personality profile. A high level of use of various languages was linked to significantly higher scores on Cultural Empathy and Open-mindedness. Gender and age were also linked to personality profiles. Advanced knowledge of more languages and frequent use of more languages were linked to higher levels of Social Initiative and Open-mindedness, while advanced knowledge of more languages was also linked to higher levels of Cultural Empathy. These findings confirm that some personality traits are shaped by individuals’ linguistic history, degree of multilingualism and a combination of social and biographical factors.
In this article, we present data from a research project on reading in German as a foreign language. The main research focus of the project was the relevance and the difficulty of understanding certain grammatical structures of German. Our data provide a good basis for new insights into the question whether, how and when contrastivity and transfer of syntactic structures across languages influence in any significant way the acquisition of receptive competences in a foreign language. The results show that foreign language readers with a Romance L1 do not necessarily have problems in understanding German sentences containing contrastive structures, that is, structures that do not exist in their L1. A comparison of semantically equivalent sentences containing either contrastive or non-contrastive structures showed that only three out of seven contrastive structures are more difficult than their non-contrastive counterparts.
This study investigates the extent to which advanced native-English L2 learners of Spanish come to acquire restrictions on bare plural preverbal subjects in L2 Spanish (e.g. gatos "cats" vs. definite plurals such as los gatos "the cats"). It tests L2 knowledge of available semantic readings of bare plurals and definite plurals in Spanish, where [+specific] and [+generic] interpretations are syntactically represented differently from English. Assuming L1 transfer, and in view of a potential subset/superset relationship of the two grammars, the learning task in this domain is not a straightforward one. Target acquisition requires both grammatical expansion and retraction; Spanish definite plural subjects require the addition of an L1-unavailable [+generic] reading, while a loss of an L1-available [+generic] reading for preverbal subject bare plurals is required. The results and analysis show that advanced L2 learners of Spanish (English L1) can circumvent a superficial subset/superset learnability problem by means of feature resetting in line with the Nominal Mapping Parameter.