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- Volume 11, Issue 2, 2021
Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism - Volume 11, Issue 2, 2021
Volume 11, Issue 2, 2021
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Initial phonological transfer in L3 Brazilian Portuguese and Italian
Author(s): Jennifer Cabrelli and Carrie Pichanpp.: 131–167 (37)More LessAbstractThis study examines five variables posited to drive(s) initial phonological transfer of (part of) one system over another in an L3: language status (L1/L2), facilitation, global structural similarity, dominance, and bilingual experience. Specifically, we investigate production of intervocalic voiced stops by English/Spanish bilinguals at the initial stages of L3 Brazilian Portuguese (BP) or Italian. These segments surface as [−continuant] in BP, Italian, and English but are realized as [+continuant] in Spanish; English transfer is therefore facilitative while Spanish is non-facilitative. Three groups (English-dominant heritage Spanish speakers, L1 English/L2 Spanish, L1 Spanish/L2 English) enrolled in first semester BP or Italian completed delayed repetition tasks in all three languages. The majority of participants across groups produce Spanish-like [+continuant] segments, suggestive of a primary role for global structural similarity. For the subset of participants across groups that produces English-like/L3-like [−continuant] segments, debrief data indicate a potential relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and [−continuant] production.
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Effects of cumulative language exposure on heritage and majority language skills
Author(s): Lily Tao, Qing Cai and Tamar H. Gollanpp.: 168–191 (24)More LessAbstractThis study investigated the effects of the amount of cumulative heritage language (HL) exposure during three time periods, on heritage and majority language performance in young adulthood, among two distinct groups of immigrant populations in the USA. Within each time period, exposure from three different sources were examined, and amount of cumulative exposure was calculated encompassing exposure from preceding periods. Factors that may modulate exposure effects were also assessed. Results showed that greater cumulative HL exposure from people at home during all three time periods significantly predicted HL skills for both language groups. For effects on English skills, only the Spanish group showed any influences of exposure. These effects were modulated by parental English proficiency. Input from other sources had less impact. The present findings support the role of parental input throughout childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood in improving HL skills, with less noticeable consequences for the majority language.
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Cross-linguistic influence in the development of null arguments in early successive bilingual acquisition
Author(s): Aldona Sopatapp.: 192–221 (30)More LessAbstractThe main goal of this study is to investigate the nature of null elements used in German by early successive bilingual Polish-German children. The language pair offers the opportunity to investigate the possibility of cross-linguistic influence in the area of null arguments between two languages which differ significantly in the nature of the null arguments allowed in the grammars. Longitudinal data from four bilingual children who were first exposed to L2 German between the ages of 2;6 and 4;7 years is used in the investigation. The results show that early successive bilinguals have no underlying grammatical representation involving pro in their L2. Neither are the null elements exclusively a result of topic drop, as they are in German, or of discourse drop, as they are in adult Polish grammar. The findings suggest that early bilinguals transfer an L1 strategy of linking null elements to general pragmatic contexts.
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Restructuring in heritage grammars
Author(s): Natalia Meir and Maria Polinskypp.: 222–258 (37)More LessAbstractThis study investigates restructuring in heritage language (HL) grammars with a special focus on the driving forces behind changes in the underlying grammar. We evaluate the effect of Age of Onset of bilingualism (AoO) on possible grammatical restructuring. Relatedly, we assess whether HL grammar divergence from the baseline can be attributed to the Age of Acquisition of a particular linguistic phenomenon and/or to the structural properties of the dominant language, under transfer.
With these general questions in mind, we conducted an auditory acceptability judgement task evaluating sensitivity to form (mis)matches in adjective-noun and numeral-noun expressions in adult Russian-Hebrew speakers: HL-speakers with AoO before age 5, HL-speakers with AoO between 5–13, and the Russian-dominant bilinguals.
The results demonstrate a robust effect of AoO: HL speakers with earlier AoO are less accurate in detecting ungrammaticalities across the board. We argue that similarities in the structures in the heritage and dominant language allow HL speakers to maintain properties of monolingual grammars; dissimilarities, on the other hand, may lead to reanalysis in the HL grammar. However, the newly-built representations in the HL do not match those of the dominant language, suggesting that changed representations do not result from direct transfer.
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Object clitic production in French-speaking L2 children and children with SLI
Author(s): Maureen Scheidnes, Laurice Tuller and Philippe Prévostpp.: 259–288 (30)More LessAbstractThis study examines French object clitic production in 20 typically developing L2 children (L1 English) compared to 19 monolingual children with SLI. We collected spontaneous and elicitation data twice at a one-year interval (T1, T2) in order to better evaluate the impact of age- and time-related factors on the L2-SLI comparison, as well as the impact of proficiency and working memory on object clitic production. The data revealed considerable group overlap at T1 in both tasks, but the L2 children produced significantly more object clitics than the SLI group at T2 in spontaneous language, thus suggesting that the L2-SLI overlap decreases when the L2 children have more language exposure. In elicitation, clitic production in both groups increased from T1 to T2 when all clitic types were included, but when only 3p accusative clitics were analyzed, the L2 children outperformed the SLI group. Age played an important role in elicitation in both groups, thus suggesting that mature performance systems, including unimpaired working memory, are required for object clitic production in this task. Language-related measures were linked to both tasks, thus suggesting that object clitic production is particularly sensitive to overall language proficiency, possibly because of issues with resource allocation.
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