Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism - Online First

While recent years have seen a shift towards random effects modelling, particularly in areas of linguistics in which nested structure is the norm (e.g., trial repetitions nested within participants), an over-reliance on standard linear modelling prevails, particularly in the cases of dynamic phenomena that may not constitute a linear relationship, e.g., vowel trajectories, pitch contours, acquisition processes, etc. Generalised Additive (Mixed) Models (GAMMs) are now commonly employed in phonetic research (given the naturally dynamic nature of speech data) and this is reflected by the availability of several tutorials which focus on phonetic data. This tutorial aims at making GAMMs accessible to researchers from other fields within linguistics. In particular, this tutorial is written for researchers in bilingualism and multilingualism who wish to be able to start using GAMMs for non-linear data, which is very common in developmental and learning phenomena. While only the basics will be covered here, we hope that researchers will get the necessary foundations to be able to learn GAMMs from existing resources.

Using a causal inference approach, we explored the relationships among the language experience determinants of morphosyntactic sensitivity, to identify the factors that indirectly and directly cause its acquisition or maintenance in immigration contexts. We probed the sensitivity to Serbian/Bosnian clitic placement violations with a self-paced listening task, in a diverse group of bilinguals in Norway (n = 71), born to immigrant parents, or having emigrated in childhood or adulthood. The outcomes included a metalinguistic violation detection score and a listening/processing time difference between licit and illicit structures.

Structural Equation Models revealed that literacy (as reading practices) was among the most influential determinants of the ability to detect violations, while Bosnian/Serbian use across contexts and age of bilingualism onset determined violation sensitivity in processing. We identified a significant threshold of societal language (SL) exposure at age 8. Rather than SL exposure before this age precluding bilinguals from developing and maintaining morphosyntactic sensitivity, this threshold seems to reflect a protective effect against attrition which intensifies the later after age 8 SL exposure starts. The length of residence in Norway did not determine attrition, suggesting that heritage and attrited speakers should be considered on a continuum rather than as distinct bilingualism profiles.

The time it takes an individual to respond to a probe (e.g., a word, picture, or question) or to read a word or phrase provides useful insights into cognitive processes. Consequently, timed measures are a staple in bilingualism research. However, timed measures usually violate assumptions of linear models, one being normal distribution of the residuals. Power transformations are a common solution but which of the many possible transformations to apply is often guesswork. Box and Cox (1964) developed a procedure to estimate the best-fitting normalizing transformation, coefficient lambda (λ), that is easy to run using standard R packages. This practical primer demonstrates how to perform the Box-Cox transformation in R using as a testbed the distractor items from a recent eye-tracking study on sentence reading in speakers of Spanish as a majority and a heritage language. The analyses show (a) that the exponents selected via the Box-Cox procedure reduce positive skewness as well as or better than the natural log; (b) that the best-fitting value of λ varies based on factors such as group and, in the case of eye-movement data, the measure of interest; and (c) that the choice of transformation sometimes impacts p values for model estimates.

Web-based eye-tracking is more accessible than ever. Researchers can now carry out visual world paradigm studies remotely and access never before tested, multilingual populations via the internet all without the need for an expensive eye-tracker. Web-based eye-tracking, however, requires careful experimental design and extensive data wrangling skills. In this paper, we provide a framework for reproducible, open science visual world paradigm studies using online experiments. We provide step-by-step instructions to building a typical visual world paradigm psycholinguistics study, and walk the reader through a series of data wrangling steps needed to prepare the data for visualization and analysis using the open-source software environment, R. Importantly, we highlight the key decisions researchers need to make and report in order to reproduce an analysis. We demonstrate our approach by carrying out a single change replication of an in-person eye-tracking study by Porretta et al. (2020). We conclude with best practices and recommendations for researchers carrying out bi-/multilingualism web-based visual world paradigm studies.

Since the launch of the term translanguaging in 1994, the multiple discursive practices that are grouped under this label have been explored in over 3000 papers, covering a variety of contexts, both within and outside education. While the term has clearly resonated with researchers and practitioners, here it is argued that it is unclear what it means exactly, because there are no diagnostic criteria specifying what it is. Extensive criticism has also been put forward in the academic literature, showing that central claims are untenable in the face of overwhelming counter-evidence from a range of fields, including studies on code-switching, bilingual education, bilingual first language acquisition, language contact and language processing. However, translanguaging can become a useful instrument for researchers and practitioners if the concept is narrowed down to what it was coined for, namely pedagogical practices that are beneficial for multilingual learners. In order for this to happen, clear diagnostic criteria need to be provided for the identification of translanguaging, and research evidence from neuroscientific, structural, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic studies on multilingualism needs to be integrated into its conceptualization.

In the present study we aimed to obtain with trilinguals the cognate inhibitory effects reported earlier for bilingual speakers who performed L2 lexical decision tasks (LDTs) with non-identical cognates and controls. To that end, Polish–English–Dutch trilinguals performed two LDTs in their L3. In Experiment 1, the stimuli included two types of double non-identical cognates Polish–Dutch (e.g., SMAK–SMAAK), and English–Dutch (e.g., BUTTER–BOTER) as well as matched non-cognate Dutch controls (e.g., JASJE). In Experiment 2, we tested triple non-identical cognates shared across Polish, English and Dutch (e.g., GRUPA–GROUP–GROEP) and Dutch controls (e.g., BROEK). We failed to find the bilingual inhibitory effects. In contrast, significant facilitation for English–Dutch and for Polish–English–Dutch cognates was found, even though no identical cognates were used. However, Polish–Dutch cognates yielded null results. The current findings emphasize the influence of the levels of form similarity on the observed cognate effects and point to the important role of stimulus list composition in cognate processing.

Research on heritage language acquisition at the school age has shown protracted development and early stabilisation in morphosyntax and the lexicon. Our study examined the properties of resultative verb compound (RVC), a structure at the crossroads of the lexicon and morphosyntax, in second-generation child heritage speakers in the UK who had continuous input in Mandarin Chinese since birth. We analysed three subclasses of RVCs produced by the heritage children (n = 27, age 4–14) and their parents (n = 18) in an oral narration task and compared them with those by children in Beijing (n = 48, age 4–9) from existing databases. Our results show that the heritage children produced RVCs quite frequently and felicitously yet highly repetitively and conservatively, with a remarkably large proportion of their RVCs consisting of a strongly lexicalised subclass with direct lexical equivalents in English. Correlational analyses show that the heritage children’s RVCs improve with age, rather than provision of RVC in the parental input, indicating the role of cumulative input in RVC acquisition. Overall, the development of RVC in heritage Mandarin is delayed rather than stabilised or attrited, supporting the lexical account for grammatical vulnerabilities in proficient heritage speakers.

We explore potential effects of prosody on pronoun interpretation in Italian, building on previous research which has shown that second language learners/users (L2ers) assign non-target interpretations to overt pronouns. We investigate effects of contrastive stress and pause, proposing that these will result in changes to default antecedent preferences for overt and null pronouns, for L2ers and for native speakers. An experiment was conducted, involving English-speaking L2ers of Italian and Italian native speakers. Participants were presented with auditory stimuli like Lorenzo ha scritto a Roberto quando Ø/lui si è trasferito a Torino ‘Lorenzo wrote to Roberto when (he) moved to Turin’ and indicated their preferred antecedent for the pronoun. Overt versus null pronouns, presence versus absence of stress on overt pronouns, and presence versus absence of pause between clauses were manipulated. The results yielded significant differences for antecedent choices between null and overt pronouns, consistent with earlier literature. In addition, stress was significant for both groups. Implications of a prosodic approach to ambiguity resolution are discussed.

The current study investigated request production in Russian as a Heritage language (HL), with a special focus on the role of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) of the majority societal language (here SL-Hebrew) and Age of Onset of Bilingualism (AOB). Ninety-seven adult participants were recruited in four groups: three groups of Russian-Hebrew bilinguals with various AOBs of SL-Hebrew – before the age of 5 (n = 32), between the ages of 5–13 (n = 20), after the age of 13 (n = 19) – and a control group of monolingual Russian speakers (n = 26). The study elicited 20 requests in formal and informal contexts through oral role-plays. The results indicate that heritage speakers acquire the basics of prototypical Russian request strategies across various social contexts. The results also show effects of CLI and AOB in the pragmatic competence of HL-speakers. When faced with linguistic difficulties to express requests, HL speakers resort to the use of compensatory strategies leading to the creation of novel structures. These novel structures are a combination of conventions that are characteristic of the Russian acquired in childhood and transfer from the dominant SL. The study makes an important contribution to the understanding of HL pragmatic development by investigating the effects of CLI and AOB.

The phenomenon of language change in contact has been explored most significantly in speakers of a language who migrate, while fewer studies explore how language is affected across different generations. In this study, we aimed to investigate the role of inter-generational attrition on the production of clitic pronouns and clitic clusters. 86 adult speakers of Italian took part in the study: homeland residents, long-term UK residents, and heritage speakers born and living in the UK from Italian families. Participants were tested on the production of different instances of clitic pronouns including clusters, a novelty of the study, and differences in response distribution were analysed with General Additive Models. Results reveal that the homeland population shows a strong preference for the production of clitics and clitic clusters, long-term residents retain a preference for clitics but not clusters, and heritage speakers disfavour the use of both clitics and clusters across the board, preferring the use of lexical items. This neat pattern of use across generations of migrants suggests a loss of the specificity and preference of clitics through language transmission between different generations of speakers of Italian removed from the homeland and immersed in a non-clitic language.