11. Balanced bilingual children with two weak languages: A French/German case study
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Natascha Müller
Abstract
Research on bilingual first language acquisition has reported on bilingual children who develop the two languages at an equal pace and like monolingual children. Recent research also includes children with a dominant/weak language; for these children Müller & Kupisch (2003) have shown that the weak language develops in a qualitatively similar way to the languages in balanced bilinguals or the strong/dominant language in unbalanced bilinguals, the difference being only quantitative in nature. The weak language exhibits a delay in the development of grammatical phenomena. The present study investigates a bilingual German/French child with two weak languages. The general result is that in a child with two weak languages delay effects can be observed to the same extent as in normally developing bilingual children. However, contrary to what other researchers have found in normally developing bilingual children, acceleration effects are absent in a child with two weak languages. Both findings are obtained on the basis of an age-matched and an MLU-matched comparison of three bilingual children. The grammatical domains investigated are determiner omissions and the realization of subjects and objects.
Abstract
Research on bilingual first language acquisition has reported on bilingual children who develop the two languages at an equal pace and like monolingual children. Recent research also includes children with a dominant/weak language; for these children Müller & Kupisch (2003) have shown that the weak language develops in a qualitatively similar way to the languages in balanced bilinguals or the strong/dominant language in unbalanced bilinguals, the difference being only quantitative in nature. The weak language exhibits a delay in the development of grammatical phenomena. The present study investigates a bilingual German/French child with two weak languages. The general result is that in a child with two weak languages delay effects can be observed to the same extent as in normally developing bilingual children. However, contrary to what other researchers have found in normally developing bilingual children, acceleration effects are absent in a child with two weak languages. Both findings are obtained on the basis of an age-matched and an MLU-matched comparison of three bilingual children. The grammatical domains investigated are determiner omissions and the realization of subjects and objects.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- 1. Left-dislocated subjects: A construction typical of young French-speaking children? 13
- 2. The development and interaction of Case and Number in early Russian 31
- 3. Verb movement and subject placement in the acquisition of word order: Pragmatics or structural economy? 61
- 4. Three acquisition puzzles and the relation between input and output 87
- 5. The acquisition of universal quantifiers in Spanish 119
- 6. Subject-object asymmetry in children's comprehension of sentences containing logical words 137
- 7. On the "vulnerability" of the left periphery in French/German balanced bilingual language acquisition 161
- 8. The subjects of unaccusative verbs in bilingual Basque/Spanish children 183
- 9. Dominance, mixing and cross-linguistic influence: On their relation in bilingual development 209
- 10. A cross-linguistic analysis of binding in Down syndrome 235
- 11. Balanced bilingual children with two weak languages: A French/German case study 269
- Afterword 295
- Index of subjects 299
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- 1. Left-dislocated subjects: A construction typical of young French-speaking children? 13
- 2. The development and interaction of Case and Number in early Russian 31
- 3. Verb movement and subject placement in the acquisition of word order: Pragmatics or structural economy? 61
- 4. Three acquisition puzzles and the relation between input and output 87
- 5. The acquisition of universal quantifiers in Spanish 119
- 6. Subject-object asymmetry in children's comprehension of sentences containing logical words 137
- 7. On the "vulnerability" of the left periphery in French/German balanced bilingual language acquisition 161
- 8. The subjects of unaccusative verbs in bilingual Basque/Spanish children 183
- 9. Dominance, mixing and cross-linguistic influence: On their relation in bilingual development 209
- 10. A cross-linguistic analysis of binding in Down syndrome 235
- 11. Balanced bilingual children with two weak languages: A French/German case study 269
- Afterword 295
- Index of subjects 299
