Recent Research on Child Bilingualism

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Recent Research on Child Bilingualism

• Julia Herschensohn
• University of Washington

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What is bilingualism?

• The practice of alternately using two languages,
  L1, L2 (Weinreich)
• Native-like control of two languages (balanced
  bilingualism, 2L1)
• The ability to produce complete meaningful
  utterances in two languages
• Knowing two languages is a normal part of
  existence for most human beings (Cook)

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Earlier is better

• Research on L1A show that infants begin
  acquisition of language before birth (de
  Boysson-Bardies, Kuhl)
• Children use unconscious less is more learning
  strategies (Newport, Herschensohn)
• Studies of early and late learners of L2 show
  earlier is better for mastering phonology and
  morphosyntax (Birdsong)

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Phonology, the sound system

• Newborn infants can recognize their mothers
  voice and are sensitive to the rhythmic features
  of the language (Boysson-Bardies)
• Two month olds begin parsing their language
  according to its syllable type (Mehler)
• Six month olds have established language-specific
  prototypes of its sounds (Kuhl)

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Phonology

• Evidence for a Critical Period Remnants from
  forgotten languages (Larson-Hall Connell)
• Comparison of L1 Japanese perception and
  production of English /l/ and /r/
• Three groups Early Immersionists (AoA 0-7) Late
  Immersionists (AoA 18) Non Immersionists
  (instructed learning)

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Remnants of language

• On all tests of perception and production the
  Early Immersionists outperformed the other two
  groups, even though they hadnt spoken English
  since age 7
• Conclusions
• There are age effects separate from education
• There are age effects separate from use
• Advantages for age can persist

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Morphology, word construction

• Verbal tense / agreement (person) inflection is
  gained by children around age two (Guasti)
• Less is More the limitations of the childs
  processing powers furnish the basis for language
  acquisition (Newport)
• Limited cognitive abilities allow children to
  perceive and store only component parts, not
  complex wholes

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Less is more

• Child L2A of verb inflection and word order
  (Herschensohn et al.)
• 6-7 year olds in a Spanish immersion academic
  setting develop (over two years) nearly perfect
  word order in Spanish production
• Verbal morphology (third person present tense
  inflection) is at less than 50 accuracy

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Less is more
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Less is more
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Less is more

• Young children follow a pattern of acquisition of
  morphosyntax resembling both L1A and adult L2A
• They show a sensitivity to the morphological
  ending of the verb
• This sensitivity to bound morphemes suggests
  less is more
• They also show L2A pattern in the quality of the
  errors and the accurate syntax compared to the
  flawed morphology

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Syntax, word sequencing

• Processing Gender concord (la table) facilitates
  native speaker processing in reaction time to
  word access
• Processing data from behavioral studies of
  French-English / German / bilinguals show that L1
  gender affects processing of L2 gender

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French L2 gender

• le m,sg livre m,sg anglais m,sg the
  English book
• les m,pl livres m,pl blancs m,pl the white
  books
• la f,sg livre f,sg anglaise f,sg the
  English pound
• les f,pl lèvres f,pl blanches f,pl the
  white lips
• French gender is not signaled morphologically
• Gender must be learned idiosyncratically for each
  noun
• Lack of direct evidence difficulty for
  acquisition

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French L2 gender

• Children with L1 grammatical gender rapidly
  acquire knowledge that nouns have different
  gender and make very few errors, even early on
  (French, German, Hebrew, Spanish)
• They acquire determinernoun as a single unit
• Phonological properties of the noun (ending)
  initially guide gender classification and choice
  of determiner

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French L2 gender

• Natives take longer to access words with
  incorrect (le table) or no gender information
  (les tables) than correct (la table)
• Bilingual replication of study (Guillelmon
  Grosjean)
• French mono early bilinguals show both
  facilitation (gender-correct) inhibition
  (gender-incorrect)
• Late Anglo-French bilinguals show neither
•  it would seem that certain processing
  mechanisms in a second language are never
  acquired after a certain (critical) point. 

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French L2 gender

• French and German have gender classes and gender
  concord in the DP English has neither.
• Few nouns have same gender between French and
  German
• der -fem Sand-fem der weißer Sand ein
  weißer Sand
• die fem Milchfem die weißer Milch eine
  weiße Milch
• das Meerneu das weißer Meer ein
  weißes Meer
• N 16 Germ-Fren adv bilinguals, LOR 6 mos,
  formal study 6 yrs 16 Eng-Fren int bilinguals,
  LOR 6 mos, formal study 4 yrs 16 Fren
  monolinguals

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French L2 gender

• Task design identify visually presented French
  nouns preceded by a definite / no article as
  known / unknown (singular gender marked, no
  art neutral)
• 6 conditions same / opposite gender (Germ) x
  correct gen / incorrect gen / neut gen
• Target noun Cor gen Incor gen Neu gen
• Same gen Le pneu La pneu xx pneu
• Same gen Le choix La choix xx choix
• Opposite gen Le lait La lait xx lait
• Opposite gen La chaise Le chaise xxchaise

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French L2 gender
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French L2 gender

• Germ-Fren bilinguals both facilitation
  inhibition of lexical access, independent of the
  German gender of the target nouns
• Eng-Fren bilinguals show no significant
  differences
• Conclusion Gender clearly affects lexical
  processing for individuals with L1 gender, maybe
  to accelerate access

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Cognition

• Child balanced bilinguals show greater ability in
  certain metalinguistic tasks than monolinguals
  (Bialystok)
• Symbol substitution (e.g. spaghetti for we)
  is easier for bilinguals
• They are better at judging grammaticality
• However, there is no blanket advantage

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Conclusion

• Id hoped that language might come on its own,
  the way it comes to babies, but people dont talk
  to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They
  dont hypnotize you with bright objects and
  repeat the same words over and over, handing out
  little treats when you finally say potty or
  wawa. It got to the point where Id see a baby
  in the bakery or grocery store and instinctively
  ball up my fists, jealous over how easy he had
  it. I wanted to lie in a French crib and start
  from scratch, learning the language from the
  ground floor up. (Sedaris)