Search

Copyright of Journal of Elementary Education / Revija za Elementarno Izobraževanje is the property of University of Maribor, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Intentional bilingualism is becoming increasingly popular in EFL countries, where many second-language speakers of English raise their children as a bilingual, with English alongside the local language. This article explores a case of intentional bilingualism spanning the first four years of a child, Ipek, who lives in Türkiye and has been exposed to Turkish and English since birth. As part of a longitudinal qualitative study, field and reflective notes were analysed to outline the key elements of Ipek’s context, including the participants, tools, methods and techniques. The insights and experiences gained in the study may contribute to developing effective strategies for developing intentional bilingualism.

The present paper aims to investigate the interplay of lexical and grammatical development in school-aged Greek-Albanian bilingual children by providing evidence both from majority, Greek, and heritage, Albanian. To this end, 47 8 to 10-year-old bilingual children were tested by means of expressive vocabulary tests in Greek and in Albanian, while their grammatical skills were evaluated by means of the LITMUS Sentence Repetition Task administered in both languages. Additionally, input-related measures in both languages, such as oral language practices, literacy, and educational practices were used to assess the bilingual experience and examine how it would correlate with lexical and grammatical skills. The analysis showed that within each language, lexical and grammatical skills were closely related both for the majority and the heritage language, while when examining across-language effects, grammatical skills in the heritage language were correlated with grammatical skills in the majority language. Concerning the role of input, we found that input in the heritage language supported skills both in the heritage and the majority language. The study's contribution is that by providing novel evidence from this specific language pair it shows that supporting the use of heritage language can boost language skills in both languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some grammatical phenomena are more resistant to diachronic change than others. The syntactic core is particularly resilient, raising the question why this is the case and what causes the least vulnerable properties to change. Since fundamental alterations of grammars do not occur across the lifespan of adults, first language acquisition is commonly considered to be the main locus of syntactic change. Under the assumption that language contact leads to cross-linguistic interaction, early bilinguals have been claimed to be the main agents of change. I revisit this debate, focusing on head directionality and V2. Summaries of studies of various acquisition types lead to the conclusion that reanalysis in core syntax does not happen in the course of neither monolingual nor bilingual L1 acquisition. Contrary to hypotheses entertained in diachronic linguistics, neither language contact nor structural ambiguity/complexity has this effect. For core properties to change in L1, the triggering information must be contained in the input. Insufficient exposure, as in heritage language acquisition, can cause morphosyntactic change, though not in the syntactic core. Only second language acquisition exhibits such effects. L2 learners are thus the most likely agents of fundamental syntactic change. I conclude that explanations of the resilience of syntactic phenomena cannot rely exclusively on structural aspects. It results from an interaction of syntactic and developmental factors, defined by grammatical constraint, acquisition principles, and processing demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bulletin of Ablai Khan KazUIRandWL: Series 'Philological sciences' is the property of Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations & World Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Little is known about the impact of teachers' questions on child bilingual's heritage language reading process and outcomes. This study examined the role of adults' questions in English-Mandarin bilingual preschoolers' Mandarin word learning, story comprehension, and reading engagement. Ninety-nine 4- to 5-year-old preschoolers in Singapore were assigned to one of the three reading conditions: (a) reading with contextualized questions (e.g., labelling), (b) reading with decontextualized questions (e.g., inference), and (c) reading without questions. The experimenters read three storybooks to the children three times over 2 weeks. Children's general Mandarin proficiency was tested before the intervention, and their target words knowledge and story comprehension were tested before and after the intervention. Children's reading engagement in each reading was assessed with a modified Child Behavior Rating Scale. The results demonstrate that not all aspects of Mandarin performance and reading engagement have benefitted from the experimenter's questions. Contextualized questions were found to significantly enhance children's word meaning explanation and story retelling. Contextualized and decontextualized questions lead to higher increase in social-cognitive engagement but resulted in faster decrease in behavioral and affective engagement over repetitive readings. Furthermore, children's initial Mandarin proficiency influences their reading process and outcomes. Generally, the better their Mandarin vocabulary knowledge was, the more they could enjoy and benefit from the reading, whether they were asked questions or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network analytical approaches have been applied to the study of young bilinguals’ word learning strategies by a growing body of research in various settings (for a review, see Wojcik, 2018). They have investigated the effect of one language on the structure of the other’s network or compared both networks, trying to identify similarities. These studies have identified features that influence bilinguals’ acquisition process: frequency, phonological features (Bilson et al., 2015), the presence of translation equivalents and cognates (Bosch & Ramon-Casas, 2014), and familiarity (Wojcik, 2018), among others. The present study was an exploratory attempt to capture the structure of the receptive vocabulary networks of young bilingual children, by combining both of their languages. Network analysis can model the connections or links of word-nodes based on selected lexical features. The links in the present social networks were determined by how many of the participating children knew two words at the same time. This knowledge was previously tested with the English (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) and Dutch (Schlichting, 2005) versions of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) with children with early exposure to both languages (Aalberse et al. [MIND-team], 2021). Exposure to Dutch and English at children's homes and daycare centers for each individual child was assessed through a parental and daycare questionnaire respectively (MIND-team, 2021). Social network analysis, using the ORA-lite software (Altman & Reminga, 2018), was used to create a network for all the children (N=297; MAge= 34.5 months, SDAge= 6.5 months) and two networks of two subgroups based on exposure (Group A: higher English than Dutch exposure, and Group B: higher Dutch than English exposure). Average exposure scores were used as a threshold and cut-off point to determine ‘high’ and ‘low’ exposure groups. The Leiden algorithm was applied to the networks (Traag et al., 2019). The algorithm is designed to identify groups, sets, and clusters within dense networks with many nodes and links. The comparison of these three networks revealed the role of exposure in acquisition and hints at the strategies employed by bilingual children in word learning. The total group of children, without exposure factored in, showed clear clustering along the language divide, with Dutch words being more central in the network. To account for exposure, the total group was divided into two subgroups, one with higher exposure to Dutch (N=118; MAge= 34.84 months) and one with higher exposure to English (N=100, MAge= 34.23 months). Whereas the subgroup with higher Dutch exposure mirrored the clustering trends of the total group of children, the subgroup with higher English exposure showed higher cross-language clustering, with both English and Dutch words being in the same Leiden cluster more consistently in the network. In the group with higher Dutch exposure, the three node-sets detected, through the Leiden algorithm, were 1) central Dutch words, 2) peripheral Dutch words and 3) peripheral English words. Contrastively, for the group with higher English exposure, the central node-set included words from both languages. This marks a group of words (from both languages) with increased learnability and potential links with each other. Joint membership in frequent semantic categories (animal names, food, clothing, small household items, and body parts) and phonological features (word length and initial sound) are the most likely candidates that guided cross-language clustering. Word difficulty affected the structure of the network as a whole: words belonging to higher PPVT sets were known by fewer children than the ones in lower sets. Overall, exposure scores were shown to have an important effect on cross-language clustering and network structure. To which relative the children spoke to and for how long they spoke to them per day (MIND-team, 2021) could determine the centrality of words in the network. Children growing up in the Netherlands have a high exposure to Dutch, as the societal language. That meant that the English group (higher English exposure) had more exposure to Dutch than the Dutch group (higher Dutch exposure) had to English. For the English group, that led to a more balanced exposure to both languages, which most likely led to higher cross-language clustering for learned words. This study offers a new methodology for studying lexical acquisition, with the aim of capturing the interconnected nature of bilinguals’ languages. The results from the balanced exposure group are in accordance with emergentist accounts of language acquisition (Claussenius-Kalman et al., 2021), suggesting that ‘one word [might utilize] the conceptual packaging invoked by a word in the other language' (Bilson et al., 2015). There were semantic and phonological features that linked words across languages in learning. No strong effect of cross-linguistic learning was found for translation equivalents and cognates, because these items were rare between the English and Dutch versions of the PPVT. Nonetheless, the contributions of the present study are an added step to the investigation of the factors that might drive connectivity in lexical acquisition.

Input is considered crucial in bilingual children's language development. This is especially true for bilingual children's mother tongue language learning given its common reduction in input opportunities due to the dominance of one language within society, as seen in countries and regions from Wales to Singapore. Previous studies tend to focus on the quantity and quality of conventional active communication and resources (e.g., speaking and reading with parents) on bilingual children's language development, and substantially, fewer studies have explored this topic from the perspective of digital media. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the critical role of digital media in various aspects of life, including bilingual children's home language environment. Thus, to holistically understand bilingual children's daily language input patterns, it is imperative to explore both their conventional and digital media input resources. The current study focuses on English-Mandarin bilingual children in Singapore and would like to explore (1) whether their conventional and digital media language environments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) whether the societal status of a language and familial socioeconomic status (SES) would affect bilingual children's conventional and digital media input. Survey data from 162 parents of English-Mandarin bilingual preschoolers (3 to 6 years old) were used to explore the two research questions. Two online parental questionnaires were employed for data collection. One-way repeated-measures MANOVA and path models were used to address the questions. The results indicated that input patterns from nuclear family members had not been affected by COVID-19; however, the amount and frequency of conventional and digital media materials and activities increased significantly since COVID-19. Higher-SES families possessed more conventional materials and conducted conventional activities more often, while lower-SES families possessed more digital media materials. Both conventional and digital media materials and activities were richer in English than in Mandarin. Higher-SES families perceived digital media usage for learning to be of less importance than lower-SES families. The implications for early bilingual learning following COVID-19 are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compared the online comprehension and the production of multiple interrogatives in 18 Romanian-English bilingual children aged 6;0-9;2 (MAGE = 8;0) living in the UK who have Romanian as heritage language (L1) and English as majority language (L2) and 32 Romanian monolingual children aged 6;11 to 9;8 (MAGE = 8;3). We examined whether differences emerge between heritage and monolingual children in the online comprehension and in the production of multiple interrogatives in Romanian, which requires fronting of all wh-phrases, contrary to English. The main aim was to uncover to which extent similarities or differences in morphosyntactic properties between the L1 and the L2 systems affect the acquisition and processing of the heritage language/L1. Online comprehension was assessed in a self-paced listening task, while production was assessed using an elicitation task. The results reveal that Romanian heritage children show similar online comprehension patterns to monolingual children for multiple interrogatives in Romanian. A different pattern emerges for production as heritage children produce less complex multiple questions in Romanian and avoid movement of two wh-phrases in all elicited structures. Given that their predominant responses for multiple interrogatives only make use of the structural option present in English, namely one fronted wh-phrase and one in-situ, we take this to show that there is transfer from the majority language to the heritage language. Thus, language production in the children's L1 seems to be affected by properties of the dominant L2, under cross-linguistic influence. Taken together, the results for both comprehension and production suggest that heritage children are able to establish the underlying representation of multiple wh-movement structures, similarly to monolinguals, but have difficulties activating the more complex structure in production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the relevant issue of analysing the common features of the grammar of Russian as language inherited by the second or third generation of migrant children in Europe and in the world. The novelty of the study is in the fact that it compares the speech of children with different dominant languages and, in particular, studies the speech of a group of children from families of Russian Germans living in Germany under dual language inheritance. Their parents have a very rich migration history, as they are, in turn, also heritage speakers of German, the language, which they spoke in their family. In the present paper, the main task will be to identify the common features determined by the contact between Russian as a heritage language and other languages, especially at morphological and lexical levels. For this purpose, a field research project was conducted at the Learning and Integration Centre Dialog e. V. in Reutlingen. The analysis of oral and written works of bilingual children of the last generation of Russian Germans showed not only the common elements of erosion identified in the heritage grammar, but also the special linguistic features caused by the transition from German-Russian to Russian-German inheritance. The influence of their parents language distinguishes them from other groups of Russian students, emphasizes the importance of studying not only childrens, but also their parents speech, as well as teaching standard Russian in the framework of non-formal education.

This study compared the online comprehension and the production of multiple interrogatives in 18 Romanian-English bilingual children aged 6;0–9;2 (MAGE = 8;0) living in the UK who have Romanian as heritage language (L1) and English as majority language (L2) and 32 Romanian monolingual children aged 6;11 to 9;8 (MAGE = 8;3). We examined whether differences emerge between heritage and monolingual children in the online comprehension and in the production of multiple interrogatives in Romanian, which requires fronting of all wh-phrases, contrary to English. The main aim was to uncover to which extent similarities or differences in morphosyntactic properties between the L1 and the L2 systems affect the acquisition and processing of the heritage language/L1. Online comprehension was assessed in a self-paced listening task, while production was assessed using an elicitation task. The results reveal that Romanian heritage children show similar online comprehension patterns to monolingual children for multiple interrogatives in Romanian. A different pattern emerges for production as heritage children produce less complex multiple questions in Romanian and avoid movement of two wh-phrases in all elicited structures. Given that their predominant responses for multiple interrogatives only make use of the structural option present in English, namely one fronted wh-phrase and one in-situ, we take this to show that there is transfer from the majority language to the heritage language. Thus, language production in the children’s L1 seems to be affected by properties of the dominant L2, under cross-linguistic influence. Taken together, the results for both comprehension and production suggest that heritage children are able to establish the underlying representation of multiple wh-movement structures, similarly to monolinguals, but have difficulties activating the more complex structure in production.

Past research shows that family language patterns (i.e., which languages are spoken in the family and by whom) are associated with bilingual children's language use. However, it is unclear how input properties such as input quantity, parental proficiency, and language mixing may differ across family language patterns. It is also unclear whether the effects of family language patterns on children's language proficiency remain when differences in input properties are controlled. We investigated (i) which family language patterns occurred in bilingual families in the Netherlands (n = 136), (ii) whether input properties differed across patterns, and (iii) how patterns related to children's proficiency, once input properties were controlled. Home language situations were assessed through a questionnaire, children's proficiency in Dutch and the minority language through vocabulary tests and parent ratings. Three language patterns were found: one-parent-one-language, both parents mixed languages or used the minority language. The results showed differences in input properties across all patterns, as well as effects of these patterns on children's proficiency in Dutch and the minority language that disappeared once input properties were controlled. These findings do not provide robust evidence that family language patterns predict children's proficiency, but rather, that input quantity is crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has highlighted the significance of the family and community in minority language revitalisation, whilst raising concern for efforts solely focused at the school level. This article draws upon research with children in Gaelic Medium Education, in Scotland, to explore their experiences and perceptions of their language use. The findings illustrate the dominance of English language across multiple aspects of children's lives and highlight the opportunities/threats of recent revitalisation efforts to push the bilingual benefits of language learning. The findings suggest the need for a more considered approach, such as translanguaging pedagogies, in order to effectively revitalise Gaelic language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of French and Russian discourse produced by different types of bilingual children. The respondents were asked to describe a set of pictures using Russian and French reflexive and reciprocal verbs, as well as their irreflexive analogues from the other language. The respondents were natural bilinguals that lived in France in Russian-French or Russian families. The research followed the long-existing tradition of bilingual discourse studies via picture description. The check set included twenty-two pictures that featured a cat performing different actions. The speech contained verbs that matched the predicted use, their synonyms, and even other verbal constructions, e.g. passive or infinitive verb forms. Furthermore, children used one-member sentences that consisted of nouns or adverbs. In all cases, the children demonstrated a more advanced level of the French language than that of Russian. This followed from several indicators: lack of Russian comments, amount of incorrect or non-standard comments, and constant switching to French. French interference appeared more pronounced. As for reflexive verbs, the number of errors was insignificant both in Russian and French discourse.

Over-identification of language disorder among bilingual children with typical development (TD) is a risk factor in assessment. One strategy for improving assessment accuracy with bilingual children is to determine which linguistic sub-domains differentiate bilingual children with TD from bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD). To date, little research on sequential bilinguals with TD and DLD has focussed on complex (multi-clausal) sentences in naturalistic production, even though this is a noted domain of weakness for school-age monolinguals with DLD. Accordingly, we sought to determine if there were differences in the use of complex sentences in conversational and narrative tasks between school-age sequential bilinguals with TD and with DLD at the early stages of L2 acquisition. We administered a conversation and a narrative task to 63 English L2 children with TD and DLD, aged 5–7 years with 2 years of exposure to the L2. Children had diverse first language backgrounds. The L2-TD and L2-DLD groups were matched for age, length of L2 exposure and general L2 proficiency (receptive vocabulary size). Language samples from both tasks were coded and analyzed for the use of complex versus simple sentences, for the distribution of complex sentence types, for clausal density and mean length of utterance (MLU). Complex sentences included coordinated clauses, sentential complement clauses, adverbial clauses and relative clauses. Using regression modelling and PERMANOVA, we found that the L2-TD group produced more complex sentences than the L2-DLD group, with coordinated clauses, adverbial clauses and relative clauses differing the most between the groups. Furthermore, the two groups differed for mean clausal density, but not for MLU, indicating that clausal density and MLU did not estimate identical morphosyntactic abilities. Individual variation in complex sentence production for L2-TD was predicted by longer L2 exposure and task; by contrast, for L2-DLD, it was predicted by older age. This study indicates that complex sentence production is an area of weakness for bilingual children with DLD, as it is for monolinguals with DLD. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

The current study investigated the mechanisms of heritage language (HL) development with a focus on case morphology. First, the effects of cross-linguistic influence (i.e., the influence of the properties of the societal language (SL) on the acquisition of the HL) was assessed by performing bilingual vs. monolingual, and between-bilingual group comparisons (Russian–Dutch vs. Russian–Hebrew bilinguals). Russian, Hebrew, and Dutch show differences in the marking of the accusative (ACC) and genitive (GEN) cases, and these differences were used as a basis for the evaluation of cross-linguistic influences. Second, the study evaluated the contribution of language-external factors such as chronological age, age of onset of bilingualism (AoO), languages spoken by the parent to the child (only HL, only SL, both HL and SL), and family language type (both parents are HL speakers, mixed families). Finally, we assessed how language-external factors might potentially mitigate the effects of cross-linguistic influences in bilinguals. Russian-Dutch bilinguals from the Netherlands (n = 39, M AGE = 5.1, SD = 0.8), Russian-Hebrew bilinguals from Israel (n = 36, M AGE = 4.9, SD = 0.9) and monolingual Russian-speaking children (n = 41, M AGE = 4.8, SD = 0.8), along with adult controls residing in the Russian Federation, participated in the study. The case production of ACC and GEN cases was evaluated using elicitation tasks. For the bilinguals, the background data on individual language-external factors were elicited from the participants. The results show that case morphology is challenging under HL acquisition—case acquisition in the HL is impeded under the influence of the properties of the SL. This is evident in the lower performance of both bilingual groups, compared with the monolingual controls who showed ceiling performance in the production of target inflection in the ACC and GEN contexts. More specifically, the acquisition of morphology is hindered when there are differences in the mapping of functional features (such as with Russian-Hebrew bilinguals) and/or the absence of this feature marking (such as with Russian-Dutch bilinguals). But the findings also point to the involvement of language-external factors as important mitigators of potential negative effects of cross-linguistic influence. In summary, HL development is an intricate interplay between cross-linguistic influence and language-external factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cross-linguistic Lexical Task (CLT; Haman, Łuniewska & Pomiechowska, 2015) is a vocabulary task designed to enable cross-linguistic comparisons both across and within (bilingual) children. In this paper we assessed the validity of the CLT as a measure of language proficiency in bilingual children, by determining the extent to which (i) age-matched, monolingual Spanish-speaking and Dutch-speaking children obtained similar scores, (ii) the CLT correlated with other measures of language proficiency in monolingual and bilingual children, and (iii) whether the factors underlying the CLT's construction, i.e., target words' estimated Age of Acquisition and Complexity Index, were predictive of children's scores. Our results showed that, while the CLT correlated with other measures and is therefore a valid means of tapping into language proficiency, caution is required when using it to compare children's language proficiency cross-linguistically, as scores for Dutch-speaking and Spanish-speaking monolinguals sometimes differed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with insertions viewed as a sub-type of intrasententional code switches within utterances of a child who simultaneously acquires Russian and English in a Russian family in Russia. Longitudinal studies of bilingual children’s speech activities are among the topical research phenomena since they can provide insight into the essential characteristics of early childhood bilingualism development. The bilingualism under observation is developed according to the principle “one person – one language” in a Russian monoethnic family, with mother speaking her native language and father speaking English, his non-native language, with their child. The authors’aim is to find out structural characteristics of insertions and their use in mixed utterances of the child during five years of his bilingual development (at the age period between three and eight years old). The data are oral utterances of the child that have been obtained with the help of participant observation fixed by videotaping and written notes. Structural analysis of insertions is based on the theoretical assumptions of the Matrix Frame Model elaborated by an American linguist C. Myers-Scotton. Two opposite trends act in the observed case: on the one hand, English language competence of the child is increasing; on the other hand, Russian as a dominant language has been more and more actively used as the Matrix language in mixed utterances, which subdues English insertions and limits their morphosyntactic significance. The results of the research show how different kinds of insertions reveal the dynamics of childhood bilingualism developed within a family or in a kindergarten.

The current study investigated the mechanisms of heritage language (HL) development with a focus on case morphology. First, the effects of cross-linguistic influence (i.e., the influence of the properties of the societal language (SL) on the acquisition of the HL) was assessed by performing bilingual vs. monolingual, and between-bilingual group comparisons (Russian–Dutch vs. Russian–Hebrew bilinguals). Russian, Hebrew, and Dutch show differences in the marking of the accusative (ACC) and genitive (GEN) cases, and these differences were used as a basis for the evaluation of cross-linguistic influences. Second, the study evaluated the contribution of language-external factors such as chronological age, age of onset of bilingualism (AoO), languages spoken by the parent to the child (only HL, only SL, both HL and SL), and family language type (both parents are HL speakers, mixed families). Finally, we assessed how language-external factors might potentially mitigate the effects of cross-linguistic influences in bilinguals. Russian-Dutch bilinguals from the Netherlands (n = 39, MAGE = 5.1, SD = 0.8), Russian-Hebrew bilinguals from Israel (n = 36, MAGE = 4.9, SD = 0.9) and monolingual Russian-speaking children (n = 41, MAGE = 4.8, SD = 0.8), along with adult controls residing in the Russian Federation, participated in the study. The case production of ACC and GEN cases was evaluated using elicitation tasks. For the bilinguals, the background data on individual language-external factors were elicited from the participants. The results show that case morphology is challenging under HL acquisition—case acquisition in the HL is impeded under the influence of the properties of the SL. This is evident in the lower performance of both bilingual groups, compared with the monolingual controls who showed ceiling performance in the production of target inflection in the ACC and GEN contexts. More specifically, the acquisition of morphology is hindered when there are differences in the mapping of functional features (such as with Russian-Hebrew bilinguals) and/or the absence of this feature marking (such as with Russian-Dutch bilinguals). But the findings also point to the involvement of language-external factors as important mitigators of potential negative effects of cross-linguistic influence. In summary, HL development is an intricate interplay between cross-linguistic influence and language-external factors.

This study focuses on the issue of language proficiency attainment among young heritage speakers of Russian living in Spain and examines factors that have been claimed to promote heritage language proficiency, namely, age, gender, age of onset to L2, quantity of exposure and family language use. A group of 30 Russian-Spanish-Catalan trilingual children aged 7–11 participated in the study. In order to measure heritage language proficiency (L1 Russian), oral narratives were elicited. The results demonstrated a significant relationship between L1 proficiency and three sociolinguistic variables (age of onset to L2, quantity of exposure and family language use). Additionally, the multiply regression model demonstrated that the only significant variable affecting language proficiency was family language use and it accounted only for 33% of the variation of children's language proficiency. The study raises the question about what are the other, yet unknown factors, which can affect heritage language proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and Research Questions: Codeswitching (CS) was investigated among English-Hebrew bilingual preschool children in a sentence repetition task focusing on switching at different points in prepositional phrases (PPs). We asked the extent to which sentence repetition accuracy differed (1) as a function of the switch site in the PP and (2) as a function of directionality, English-to-Hebrew versus Hebrew-to-English CS. Design/Methodology: English/first language (L1)-Hebrew/second language (L2), sequential bilingual children (N = 65), ages 5;5–6;5, participated. Thirty-six English and 36 Hebrew stimulus sentences were matched for semantic content and syntax. English stimulus sentences contained switches to Hebrew; Hebrew stimuli contained switches to English. Six 'switch' conditions were examined: a single codeswitched noun (N), a determiner–noun switch (DET+N), a codeswitched preposition (P), a preposition–determiner switch (P+DET), a switch of the entire PP (P+DET+N), and a no-switch condition. Data and Analysis: Audio recordings were transcribed and coded. Full sentence repetition was coded as correct/incorrect. The number of errors and the proportion of CS errors were computed. A 6 × 2 repeated-measures analysis of variance examined the effects of switch site within the PP and directionality (L1-to-L2 versus L2-to-L1). Findings/Conclusions: Accuracy was highest for the non-switched, N, and P+DET+N conditions. Accuracy was lowest for DET+N switches in English sentences, and for P switches in Hebrew sentences, and these two conditions showed the highest proportion of CS errors. The findings show evidence for a hierarchy of processing costs and directionality differences, which are interpreted in terms of contrastive typological features, particularly definiteness marking in the two languages, English by a free morpheme, and Hebrew by a bound clitic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilingual children may choose to reply to utterances in one language with another language. This behavior, which we call interspeaker code-switching, reportedly varies in frequency across children yet the sources of such variation are not well understood. While its use has been linked to variation in proficiency both concurrently and longitudinally, quantitative analyses of this relationship are limited. Here we measure frequency of interspeaker code-switching in a new population, French–English bilinguals in France (ages 5–8), using parental report and relate it to children's self-reported language attitudes and perceptions of dominance, English receptive and expressive vocabulary, and sentence repetition ability. These children use interspeaker code-switching infrequently and nearly exclusively in the direction of French. Use is predicted by children's expressive lexical and grammatical proficiency but not their attitudes toward English and French and exhibits only a marginally significant relationship with self-reported dominance. It shows a closer relationship with proficiency than other more well studied experience variables such as current exposure and output, especially for children with lesser English use. These results support a strong link between interspeaker code-switching and proficiency but not for children's attitudes in a context where they are generally favorable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study examines the characteristics of the child heritage language during the period of its relative dominance in early sequential bilinguals. Our objectives are twofold: to compare lexical accuracy and access in heritage and monolingual speakers across the primary school years, and to examine whether the results point to any early shifts in the heritage language strength. Design/methodology/approach: The participants are 38 Polish–English early sequential bilinguals and 24 Polish monolinguals aged 4;7–13;2, divided into four age groups. We use a new psycholinguistic tool, the Child HALA, to measure shifts in language strength by comparing lexical accuracy and access between the heritage and monolingual Polish. This picture-naming test is based on the HALA tool. Data and analysis: The data consists of accuracy and response time scores. The results are compared between the age groups and between the heritage and monolingual speakers to document any changes as a function of age and type of acquisition. Findings/conclusions: The heritage speakers achieve similar accuracy scores as the monolinguals; however, their rate of acquisition is slower. Their response time scores are lower across all age spans, which points to a slower language access. The results may suggest that the heritage language displays early shifts in its strength before a switch to a more dominant L2 between the mean age of 8–11;5. Originality: We document early changes in the heritage language strength that occur during a period of its relative dominance in bilingual children. The study employs a new psycholinguistic test applicable in the assessments of language maintenance in children. Significance/implications: The study provides insights into the heritage language maintenance during the early years of exposure to the majority language. The results may offer a greater understanding of the characteristics of the heritage language development in bilingual children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research in the field of bi-/multilingualism has shown that the acquisition of two (or more) languages during childhood is significantly influenced by the sociolinguistic experience of each individual, namely by the quantity and the quality of language exposure to the target languages (Unsworth 2016a). In fact, the heterogeneity of sociolinguistic contexts in which bilingual acquisition takes place leads to variation in the quantity and quality of the input to which bilingual children are exposed on a daily basis, which, in turn, originates individual variation in the levels of language development in the languages under acquisition, mainly, in the minority language (also known as heritage language/HL; cf. Montrul 2016). In order to assess the effect of language experience on bilingual development, studies usually resort to sociolinguistic questionnaires, which allow the researcher to outline the sociolinguistic profile of the subjects under analysis, as well as to obtain crucial information about predictive variables of bilingual development (see Unsworth 2019). In this paper, we present a sociolinguistic questionnaire, in Portuguese, developed for the collection of data on the sociolinguistic experience of bilingual children, between the ages of six and ten, with a migration background - the Questionário Sociolinguístico Parental para Famílias Emigrantes Bilingues (QuesFEB). This parental questionnaire, intended for researchers who conduct studies in the field of heritage bilingualism, has as its main objective the collection of biographical and sociolinguistic information not only for the detailed characterisation of the context in which bilingual children acquire the heritage language, but also, and mainly, for the quantification of their language experience in the target language, enabling the assessment of the effect that variables related to input quantity and quality have on that language. Besides providing a detailed description of the content of the sections that compose the QuesFEB, we will present, in detail, the method of codification and calculation of four key variables that have been found to be predictive of HL development, namely: (i) current quantity of HL use (i.e., input and output) in the household; (ii) quantity of cumulative exposure to the HL in the household; (iii) quantity of HL use (i.e., input and output) with migrant grandparents who are native speakers of the language of origin; and (iv) richness of the language exposure to the HL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Language exposure is known to be a key factor influencing bilingual vocabulary development in typically developing (TD) children. There is, however, a lack of knowledge in terms of exposure effects in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and, especially, in interaction with age of onset (AoO) of second language acquisition. Aims: In the Helsinki longitudinal SLI study (HelSLI), we investigated the receptive and expressive second language (L2) vocabulary performance and cross‐sectional vocabulary development of sequentially bilingual children with TD and DLD in order to resolve whether the groups could be differentiated based on their vocabulary performance. More importantly, we examined the effects of AoO and exposure in the vocabulary performance of these two bilingual groups. Methods & Procedures: A total of 70 children with DLD from a hospital clinic and 82 with TD from kindergartens were recruited. Children were 3–7 years old with different AoOs for the L2 and varying degrees of language exposure. Multiple regression analysis was used to compare the groups in two receptive and three expressive vocabulary tests while considering the effects of AoO and language exposure. Outcomes & Results: Children with TD outperformed children with DLD in both receptive and expressive vocabulary measures. Exposure predicted vocabulary but AoO did not. The effect of exposure was different in TD and DLD groups in receptive but not in expressive vocabulary. Additionally, the interaction of exposure and AoO was found for receptive vocabulary, but similarly in both groups. With increasing exposure, a difference in performance between the groups became more notable in receptive vocabulary compared with the expressive vocabulary. Conclusions & Implications: Bilingual children with TD and DLD can be differentiated by using L2 vocabulary tests when exposure is taken into consideration. Non‐significant AoO effects in 3–7 year olds suggest flexibility in terms of when to start L2 immersion. However, exposure is important, and especially children with DLD would need a substantial amount of it relative to their TD peers, so that they would not fall even further behind over time. Differences in benefiting from exposure in receptive mode might offer clinicians and kindergarten personnel an insight for evaluating challenges in bilingual development. Severe challenges in vocabulary development in the DLD group also call for both individually targeted small‐group activities for learning words as well as strategies for strengthening vocabulary in various environments and everyday life situations. What this paper addsWhat is already known on the subjectLanguage exposure is often found to explain more of the variation compared with AoO in early L2 vocabulary. On the other hand, it has been suggested by some researchers, but not all, that AoO effects would be found. Exposure and AoO might also interact differently depending on the task and whether the development is typical or disordered. Contrary to the clinical observation, diagnostic value of receptive vocabulary has often been questioned.What this paper adds to existing knowledgeThis study indicates that receptive vocabulary might be useful in differentiating bilingual TD and DLD. Language exposure effects differ between TD and DLD groups, but depending on task. Lower performance, but also slower cross‐sectional development, is found in receptive vocabulary for children with DLD. Interaction between language exposure and AoO stresses the importance of taking both into consideration when studying bilingual development.What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?L2 vocabulary tests can be used in differentiating bilingual children with TD and DLD when exposure is taken into consideration. Difficulties using exposure and, hence, slower development in children with DLD suggest that especially receptive vocabulary might be diagnostic by the accumulating exposure. Investing in ways of supporting vocabulary development through small‐group activities and in everyday situations of bilingual children at risk of DLD is highly recommended. This is important to prevent them from incrementally falling further behind their TD peers over time. A limited AoO effect suggests that families have more flexibility in terms of when to place their child in L2 immersion in their early years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study of family language policy unites research in child language acquisition and language policy to better understand how parents’ language decisions, practices and beliefs influence child outcomes (King, Fogle & Logan-Terry, 2008). Thus far, this work has focused on how family language policy shapes children’s language competencies, formal school success (e.g., Snow, 1990), and the future status of minority languages (e.g., Fishman, 1991), with less attention to children’s active roles in shaping parents’ ideologies and practices (cf. AUTHOR1, 2009; Luykx, 2003). Addressing this gap, this paper examines how child agency and language use patterns influence parental language behaviors. We draw from three studies of transnational families (Russian/English-speaking international adoptive families and Spanish-English bilingual homes), to describe four aspects of child-parent discourse: (a) children’s metalinguistic comments, (b) children’s use of resistance strategies, (c) parental responses to children’s growing linguistic competence, and (d) enactments of family-external ideologies of race and language.

This case study investigates variability in the use of inflectional markings by two Indonesian L2 learners of English. It aims to see whether the verbal omission of particular morphemes is related to the absence of specific morphemes in the learners' first language, or whether they already have morphosyntactic knowledge but fail to overtly mark morphological inflections. Spontaneous production data were collected longitudinally from two subjects through audio-taping them in naturalistic conversations with both native and non-native English-speaking interlocutors. Audio data were transcribed to analyze morphological development. The findings of the study indicate that the subjects frequently omit inflections for agreement marking and copula/auxiliary verbs. It has also been found that they over-generate be forms in utterances where progressive forms do not exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that bilingual children outperform monolinguals on tasks testing cognitive control. Bilinguals’ enhanced cognitive control is thought to be caused by the necessity to exert more language control in bilingual compared to monolingual settings. Surprisingly, between-group research of cognitive effects of bilingualism is hardly ever combined with within-group research that investigates relationships between language control and cognitive control. The present study compared 27 monolingual Dutch and 27 bilingual Turkish-Dutch children matched on age and fluid intelligence on their performance in a nonverbal switching task. Within the group of bilinguals, the relationship between nonverbal switching and language switching was examined. The results revealed no between-group differences on nonverbal switching. Within the bilingual sample, response times in the language switching and nonverbal switching tasks were related, although no relationships were found between accuracy, switching cost and mixing cost on both tasks. The results support the hypothesis that children utilize domain-general cognitive control in language switching, but this relationship does not entail that bilinguals have better cognitive control than monolinguals.

In this paper, we consider elicited production data (real and nonce words tasks) from five different studies on the acquisition of grammatical gender in Heritage Russian, comparing children growing up in Germany, Israel, Norway, Latvia, and the United Kingdom. The children grow up in diverse heritage language backgrounds, ranging from small groups (in Norway) to large communities (in Latvia). Furthermore, the children vary with respect to family background (one or two Russian-speaking parents) as well as the intensity of instruction in the heritage language through complementary schools. Russian has a three-gender system (masculine, feminine, and neuter) with gender cues varying in their transparency, predictability and frequency. The majority languages that these children speak differ widely with respect to the linguistic property studied: While English has no grammatical gender, Latvian and Hebrew both have two-gender systems (feminine and masculine), as well as the Oslo and Tromsø dialects of Norwegian (masculine and neuter), while German has a three-gender system, with a feminine-masculine-neuter distinction, like Russian. However, the transparency of gender assignment varies greatly, with Hebrew and Latvian having predictable gender based on the shape of the noun, like Russian, while gender assignment in Norwegian is generally arbitrary and German is semi-transparent, with gender assignment tendencies rather than rules. The focus in the paper is on language-internal and language-external factors that may be (non-)facilitative for the acquisition of gender in Russian, i.e., possible cross-linguistic influence from the majority language and the importance of background factors, such as family situation, age at start of kindergarten, size of the Russian-speaking community, current exposure to Heritage Russian instruction, and the main language of instruction. Our results show no significant differences across groups with respect to the majority language, but clear effects of background variables, with family type, age, and current exposure to Heritage Russian instruction as the most important ones.

Previous research has shown that bilingual children outperform monolinguals on tasks testing cognitive control. Bilinguals' enhanced cognitive control is thought to be caused by the necessity to exert more language control in bilingual compared to monolingual settings. Surprisingly, between-group research of cognitive effects of bilingualism is hardly ever combined with within-group research that investigates relationships between language control and cognitive control. The present study compared 27 monolingual Dutch and 27 bilingual Turkish-Dutch children matched on age and fluid intelligence on their performance in a nonverbal switching task. Within the group of bilinguals, the relationship between nonverbal switching and language switching was examined. The results revealed no between-group differences on nonverbal switching. Within the bilingual sample, response times in the language switching and nonverbal switching tasks were related, although no relationships were found between accuracy, switching cost and mixing cost on both tasks. The results support the hypothesis that children utilize domain-general cognitive control in language switching, but this relationship does not entail that bilinguals have better cognitive control than monolinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the development of the phonological system of Russian as a heritage language (RHL) in the speech by bi/multilingual children. The chapter reports the results of a qualitative study examining phonological characteristics in the Russian speech of 29 bi/multilingual children (between 5 and 6 years old) from immigrant families in Saskatchewan. The results provided with reference to Russian monolingual child (MR) speech data demonstrate that child RHL speakers produce non-canonical forms (forms different from standard adult language use) similar to the ones by MR speakers. These forms include rhotacism, consonant cluster reductions, gliding, sonorant deletions, and other processes common in child speech. Some RHL speakers also employ dialectal and colloquial forms. In particular, Southern Russian/Ukrainian [?] sound use was observed in the speech of 8 participants whose parents immigrated from Eastern Ukraine. Some limited evidence suggesting the possibility of a double phonemic system (with elements of Russian and Ukrainian or Suržik) has been observed in the speech of two RHL participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how bilingualism in an atonal language, in addition to a tonal language, influences lexical and non-lexical tone perception and word learning during childhood. Forty children aged 5;3–7;2, bilingual either in English and Mandarin or English and another atonal language, were tested on Mandarin lexical tone discrimination, level-pitch sine-wave tone discrimination, and learning of novel words differing minimally in Mandarin lexical tone. Mandarin–English bilingual children discriminated between and learned novel words differing minimally in Mandarin lexical tone more accurately than their atonal–English bilingual peers. However, Mandarin–English and atonal–English bilingual children discriminated between level-pitch sine-wave tones with similar accuracy. Moreover, atonal–English bilingual children showed a tendency to perceive differing Mandarin lexical and level-pitch sine-wave tones as identical, whereas their Mandarin–English peers showed no such tendency. These results indicate that bilingualism in a tonal language in addition to an atonal language—but not bilingualism in two atonal languages—allows for continued sensitivity to lexical tone beyond infancy. Moreover, they suggest that although tonal–atonal bilingualism does not enhance sensitivity to differences in pitch between sine-wave tones beyond infancy any more effectively than atonal–atonal bilingualism, it protects against the development of biases to perceive differing lexical and non-lexical tones as identical. Together, the results indicate that, beyond infancy, tonal–atonal bilinguals process lexical tones using different cognitive mechanisms than atonal–atonal bilinguals, but that both groups process level-pitch non-lexical tone using the same cognitive mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various studies have shown that bilingual children score lower than their monolingual peers on standardized receptive vocabulary tests. This study investigates if this effect is moderated by language distance. Dutch receptive vocabulary was tested with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). The impact of cross-language distance was examined by comparing bilingual groups with a small (Close; n = 165) and a large between-language distance (Distant; n = 108) with monolingual controls (n = 39). As a group, the bilinguals scored lower on Dutch receptive vocabulary than the monolinguals. The bilingual Distant group had lower receptive vocabulary outcomes than the bilingual Close and monolingual groups. No difference emerged between the monolinguals and the bilingual Close group. It can be concluded that bilingual children whose languages provide ample opportunities for transfer and sharing knowledge do not have any receptive vocabulary delays. The findings underscore that bilingual children cannot be treated as a homogeneous group and are important for determining which bilingual children are at risk of low vocabulary outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To investigate an assessment approach that incorporates a parent questionnaire (ALDeQ) and two language processing tasks (nonword repetition [NWR] and recalling sentences [RS]) administered in English to differentiate bilingual children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) from typically developing (TD) bilingual children. Method: Participants were 42 typically developing bilingual children (biTD) and 19 bilingual children with DLD (biDLD). Groups were matched for age (M = 5;10) socioeconomic status (M = 1,023 SEIFA) and length of exposure to English (M = 33.4 months). Children were given a NWR and RS task. Parents completed the ALDeQ. Result: BiDLD had significantly (p < 0.005) lower average scores than biTD on all three assessment tools. The ALDeQ provided the highest diagnostic accuracy (100% sensitivity, 95.2% specificity, area under the curve [AUC] = 0.991). Two other combinations also provided good diagnostic accuracy (above 80% sensitivity and 80% specificity): combination of ALDeQ and NWR; scores below the cut-offline on any combination of assessment tools. Conclusion: Correct identification of DLD among bilingual children using an all English approach is possible. This approach has the potential to provide a practical and evidence-based solution for English speaking speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working with bilingual children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competing Interests: The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

This longitudinal study examined morphosyntactic development in the heritage Arabic-L1 and English-L2 of first-generation Syrian refugee children (mean age = 9.5; range = 6–13) within their first three years in Canada. Morphosyntactic abilities were measured using sentence repetition tasks (SRTs) in English and Syrian Arabic that included diverse morphosyntactic structures. Direct measures of verbal and non-verbal cognitive skills were obtained, and a parent questionnaire provided the age at L2 acquisition onset (AOA) and input variables. We found the following: Dominance in the L1 was evident at both time periods, regardless of AOA, and growth in bilingual abilities was found over time. Cognitive skills accounted for substantial variance in SRT scores in both languages and at both times. An older AOA was associated with superior SRT scores at Time−1 for both languages, but at Time-2, older AOA only contributed to superior SRT scores in Arabic. Using the L2 with siblings gave a boost to English at Time−1 but had a negative effect on Arabic at Time-2. We conclude that first-generation children show strong heritage-L1 maintenance early on, and individual differences in cognitive skills have stable effects on morphosyntax in both languages over time, but age and input factors have differential effects on each language and over time.

Bilingual children often experience difficulties with inflectional morphology. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate how regularity of inflection in combination with verbal short-term and working memory (VSTM, VWM) influences bilingual children’s performance. Data from 231 typically developing five- to eight-year-old children were analyzed: Dutch monolingual children (N = 45), Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (N = 106), Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (N = 31), Tarifit-Dutch bilingual children (N = 38) and Arabic-Dutch bilingual children (N = 11). Inflection was measured with an expressive morphology task. VSTM and VWM were measured with a Forward and Backward Digit Span task, respectively. The results showed that, overall, children performed more accurately at regular than irregular forms, with the smallest gap between regulars and irregulars for monolinguals. Furthermore, this gap was smaller for older children and children who scored better on a non-verbal intelligence measure. In bilingual children, higher accuracy at using (irregular) inflection was predicted by a smaller cross-linguistic distance, a larger amount of Dutch at home, and a higher level of parental education. Finally, children with better VSTM, but not VWM, were more accurate at using regular and irregular inflection.

Aims and objectives: Differences in directionality, motivations and locus of codeswitching have been reported for children's codeswitching, but these constructs have not been subjected to experimental study in order to examine how they may interact. This study investigated these variables in bilingual preschool children's codeswitching. Methodology: Thirty-two Russian-Hebrew bilingual children (mean age 6;3) performed two tasks: Retelling of narratives manipulated for setting/topic and listener and Conversation with a bilingual adult. Retelling conditions included a Russian story retold to a Hebrew-speaking puppet, a Hebrew story retold to a Russian speaking puppet and a Mixed language story retold to a bilingual puppet. The Conversation task involved responses to questions in Russian, Hebrew and codeswitched speech about holidays and activities at home and in preschool. Data and Analysis: All children's speech was audio recorded and transcribed using CHILDES conventions for data transcription. Codeswitched utterances were coded for the following: Directionality (Hebrew-to-Russian/Russian-to-Hebrew); Motivation (psycholinguistic/sociopragmatic); and Locus (intra-utterance/cross-speaker). Results: Overall children produced more codeswitching from Russian to Hebrew and did so more for psycholinguistic motivations (to maintain fluency or to overcome difficulties in lexical access). Originality: High rates of codeswitching occurred in this study, ranging from 15% to 22% for Conversation and Retelling, respectively (calculated as codeswitched instances per utterance). This high rate may be attributed to the experimental nature of the tasks, which intended to elicit codeswitching in children's speech. Significance: Drawing from Green and Wei's processing model, findings regarding directionality and motivation are discussed in terms of connectivity and activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We examined narratives in bilinguals with TD and bilinguals with DLD. • DLD bilinguals had significantly lower story grammar scores than their TD peers. • Groups showed similar scores for microstructure components. • L2 exposure and richness predict narrative abilities for TD bilinguals, not DLD. Abstract Purpose : The narrative abilities of bilinguals with TD and with DLD/SLI in their English L2 were examined in order to 1) identify the narrative components that differentiate these two groups and 2) determine the role of age and input factors in predicting L2 narrative abilities in each group. Method : Participants were 24 English L2 children with DLD and 63 English L2 children with TD, matched on age (mean = 5; 8) and length of exposure to the L2 (mean = 24 months). Narrative samples were elicited using a story generation task and a parent questionnaire provided age and input variables. Results : Bilinguals with DLD had significantly lower scores for story grammar than their TD peers, but showed similar scores for narrative microstructure components. Length of L2 exposure in school and richness of the L2 environment predicted better narrative abilities for the group with TD but not with DLD. Older age predicted better narrative abilities for the group with DLD but not with TD. Quantity of L2 input/output at home did not predict story grammar or microstructure abilities in either group. Conclusion : Story grammar might differentiate between children with TD and DLD better than microstructure among bilinguals with less exposure to the L2 and when a story generation task is used. Bilinguals with TD make more efficient use of L2 input than bilinguals with DLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Madrygal: Revista de Estudios Gallegos is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study assesses the effects of age and language exposure on VOT production in 29 simultaneous bilingual children aged 3;7 to 5;11 who speak German as a heritage language in the Netherlands. Dutch and German have a binary voicing contrast, but the contrast is implemented with different VOT values in the two languages. The results suggest that bilingual children produce ‘voiced’ plosives similarly in their two languages, and these productions are not monolingual-like in either language. Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence between Dutch and German can explain these results. Yet, the bilinguals seemingly have two autonomous categories for Dutch and German ‘voiceless’ plosives. In German, the bilinguals’ aspiration is not monolingual-like, but bilinguals with more heritage language exposure produce more target-like aspiration. Importantly, the amount of exposure to German has no effect on the majority language's ‘voiceless’ category. This implies that more heritage language exposure is associated with more language-specific voicing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: 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?” Design/methodology/approach: This study is a longitudinal case study. Data and analysis: 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. Findings/conclusions: 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study explores the influence of socioeconomic status (SES) and bilingualism on the linguistic skills and verbal short-term memory of preschool children. In previous studies comparing children of low and mid-high SES, the terms “a child with low-SES” and “a child speaking a minority language” are often interchangeable, not enabling differentiated evaluation of these two variables. The present study controls for this confluence by testing children born and residing in the same country and attending the same kindergartens, with all bilingual children speaking the same heritage language (HL-Russian). A total of 120 children (88 bilingual children: 44 with low SES; and 32 monolingual children: 16 with low SES) with typical language development, aged 5; 7–6; 7, were tested in the societal language (SL-Hebrew) on expressive vocabulary and three repetition tasks [forward digit span (FWD), nonword repetition (NWR), and sentence repetition (SRep)], which tap into verbal short-term memory. The results indicated that SES and bilingualism impact different child abilities. Bilingualism is associated with decreased vocabulary size and lower performance on verbal short-term memory tasks with higher linguistic load in the SL-Hebrew. The negative effect of bilingualism on verbal short-term memory disappears once vocabulary is accounted for. SES influences not only linguistic performance, but also verbal short-term memory with lowest linguistic load. The negative effect of SES cannot be solely attributed to lower vocabulary scores, suggesting that an unprivileged background has a negative impact on children’s cognitive development beyond a linguistic disadvantage. The results have important clinical implications and call for more research exploring the varied impact of language and life experience on children’s linguistic and cognitive skills.