The typical development of simultaneous bilinguals
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Elin Thordardottir
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the effect of the relative amount of exposure bilingual children have received in each of their languages on their performance on tests of language knowledge (vocabulary and grammar) and language processing (nonword repetition and sentence imitation). Results are reported on studies of two age groups of monolingual and bilingual preschoolers in Montreal, Canada, learning English and French. Amount of input exerted a strong effect on the rate of development of both vocabulary and grammar, but had little impact on children’s ability to repeat nonwords. Children with unequal amounts of exposure to each language had similarly unequal levels of performance both in vocabulary and grammar. Grammatical development followed strongly language specific patterns in terms of order of acquisition, accuracy and error types. Normative data are reported on bilingual children with different levels of exposure that aid in the language assessment of bilingual children. Nonword repetition accurately distinguished children with and without language impairment regardless of bilingual exposure.
Abstract
This chapter focuses on the effect of the relative amount of exposure bilingual children have received in each of their languages on their performance on tests of language knowledge (vocabulary and grammar) and language processing (nonword repetition and sentence imitation). Results are reported on studies of two age groups of monolingual and bilingual preschoolers in Montreal, Canada, learning English and French. Amount of input exerted a strong effect on the rate of development of both vocabulary and grammar, but had little impact on children’s ability to repeat nonwords. Children with unequal amounts of exposure to each language had similarly unequal levels of performance both in vocabulary and grammar. Grammatical development followed strongly language specific patterns in terms of order of acquisition, accuracy and error types. Normative data are reported on bilingual children with different levels of exposure that aid in the language assessment of bilingual children. Nonword repetition accurately distinguished children with and without language impairment regardless of bilingual exposure.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Introduction to “Input and experience in bilingual development” 1
- Language exposure and online processing efficiency in bilingual development 15
- The absolute frequency of maternal input to bilingual and monolingual children 37
- Language input and language learning 59
- Language exposure, ethnolinguistic identity and attitudes in the acquisition of Hebrew as a second language among bilingual preschool children from Russian- and English-speaking backgrounds 77
- Interactions between input factors in bilingual language acquisition 99
- Properties of dual language input that shape bilingual development and properties of environments that shape dual language input 119
- The typical development of simultaneous bilinguals 141
- French-English bilingual children’s sensitivity to child-level and language-level input factors in morphosyntactic acquisition 161
- Comparing the role of input in bilingual acquisition across domains 181
- Index 203
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Introduction to “Input and experience in bilingual development” 1
- Language exposure and online processing efficiency in bilingual development 15
- The absolute frequency of maternal input to bilingual and monolingual children 37
- Language input and language learning 59
- Language exposure, ethnolinguistic identity and attitudes in the acquisition of Hebrew as a second language among bilingual preschool children from Russian- and English-speaking backgrounds 77
- Interactions between input factors in bilingual language acquisition 99
- Properties of dual language input that shape bilingual development and properties of environments that shape dual language input 119
- The typical development of simultaneous bilinguals 141
- French-English bilingual children’s sensitivity to child-level and language-level input factors in morphosyntactic acquisition 161
- Comparing the role of input in bilingual acquisition across domains 181
- Index 203
