Bilingualism in Infancy Flashcards
Languages in Canada
- For people who reported an immigrant mother tongue rose
from 2011 to 2016 -an increase of 13.3%. - In 2016, 2.4% of Canadians reported > one mother tongue,
compared with 1.9% of Canadians in 2011. - In 2016, 19.4% of Canadians and in 2021 25% of Canadians reported speaking more than one language at home, up from
2011 (17.5%). - In 2016, 7 in 10 people with a mother tongue other than English or French spoke one of these languages at home
Retention Rate of Heritage Language
- punjabi still retaing
- the least european languagues
Language Diversity in Vancouver
top 10 ‘Other’ Languages Vancouverites Speak
Most Often at Home
* chinese
* punjabi
* tagalog
What does it mean to be bilingual?
- Gradient of definitions:
– Ability to speak without accent in two
languages
– Ability to communicate in two languages
– Ability to understand two languages
What is a bilingual infant?
Bilingual First Language Acquisition (BFLA): The learning of two languages simultaneously from birth (also called crib bilinguals, or simultaneous bilinguals)
- Usually consider minimum 25% exposure to each language
- Multitude of sources
- Dominant language: Language of higher proficiency
Bilingual Language Development is
Unique
- Two sets of sounds
- Two sets of words
- Two grammars
- Two sets of cultural
norms –>** Biculturalism**
Bilingual and Monolingual
Development are Similar
-
Similar milestones as monolinguals:
– Babbling
– First word
– First two-word utterances - Both groups have same goal: to become communicators
Are bilinguals confused?
Speaking the Right Language
- Genesee, Boivin & Nicoladis
1996 - 1 and 2-year old French- English bilingual infants
- Videotaped while interacting with monolingual strangers
- Infants changed their language depending on the language of the stranger
- However, infants still used words from the other language
Why do young bilinguals mix their
languages?
-
Bilingual infants sometimes produce utterances with words from both languages(why?)
– They don’t know the right word in the other language
– The people around them mix the languages - Children’s amount of mixing is a function of the mixing of their families and communities
Are bilinguals confused?
Two sets of Sounds
-
Monolingual babies:
Discriminate sounds from the world’s languages at 4-6-months - By 10-12 months, only discriminate sounds from their native language
- Bilingual babies: Discriminate sounds from the world’s languages at 4-6 months
- By 10-12 months, discriminate sounds from BOTH of their native languages
Keeping their languages separate:
Visual Language Discrimination
*(Weikum, Vouloumanos, Soto-Faraco,
Navarro, Sebastian-Galles, & Werker,
Science, 2007)
study:
can babies discriminate languague just by looking at face
-habituate babies with people own mother-toung speaking their languague (with no sound) , changed to a new sentence with different languague or control (speaking again the same sentece with the same langue
result:
* Monlinguals at 4 & 6 saw discrimination , but not 8-months
- only Bilinguals 8 months saw descrimination
bilingual kids continued to descriminate at a later age(?)
they pay more attetion to languague that monologs didnt
How early does bilingualism start:
Bilingual from birth?
english monolinguals: mothers spoke only english during pregnancy
tagalog billinguals: mothers spoke english and tagalog regularly during pregnancy (30%-70%)
Tested on language discrimination and preference
Testing learning:
Language preference (results)
- strong suck vs weak one
- alternaded languague (english vs tagalog)
result= monolingual show a preference for english more then tagalog - sucked more in english
bilingual was a mixed results, didnt show a preference pf one over the other - sometimes sucked more in eglish sometime tagalog (can they tell the difference between tagalog or english)
….. are they really bilingual?
- Two languages? Or
language confusion? - Broad similarity
gradient…. - < prenatal exposure to
each language than
monolingual has to
one - Can they
discriminate?
Discrimination
- habituated them in one languague
- then gave them a semple from another languague
- control condition: then gave theam a semple from the same languague
- they could descriminate languague , they just prefer both
“Bilingual” newborns
- **Prefer both of their native languages at birth
** - But are able to keep them distinct (discriminate)
– Preference reflects exposure
– Initial discrimination robust, keeps their languages apart
- Allows neonates to direct attention to native language(s), while maintaining separation
Bilingual Word Learning
* Vocabulary is smaller in each language, but the total number of conceptual words is at least as big
- Are equally able to learn new words through word-object associations
- Do they figure out new word meanings in the same way?
Bilinguals know two words for each object. Will they still show Mutual Exclusivity?
- Compared monolingual to
bilingual toddlers ME Task. - Familiar Word Trials: objects they know
- Disambiguation Trials:: “Where
is the nil?”
Mutual exclusivity: Because
this child already knows the name of the familiar object on the table, she will
pick up the novel object when the adult asks her to “show me the blicket.”
results
It looks like bilinguals do NOT show Mututal Exclusivity to the same extent that monolinguals do, and trilinguals do not show it at all!
at chance?
we assume they think that a blicket could be the name of this object in another languague
➢ Assumptions & Expectations
- We saw in the previous studies that bilingual infants do not show mutual
exclusivity to the same degree - But do they actually accept a second label for an object?
- And what do monolingual infants do with that new word? Do they treat it as
a subcategory term, e.g. a property? - Tested this in Kandhadai, P., Hall, D.G., & Werker, J.F. (2017). Dev Sci.
showed them (familarization phase)
pink cat > cat
brow dog > dog
blue dog > zabe
test phase
across category:blue cat and pink dog > zabe
within category:blue dog and brown dog> zabe
monolinguals though zabe was a colour
bilingual though zabe was another name for dog
suggesting
- That would suggest it is experience that underlie word learning biases
- Rather than a constraint or expectation the child brings . . . . . .
But – we were wrong!
**Both bilinguals and monolinguals can adhere to, or relax mutual exclusivity ……… if they are given information about whether they are hearing one of their known languages **
infants axpect that somoen with a different race speaks another languague :
same experiment from a couple flash cards ago but adding a person from one race and the other race
results
Monolinguals: with someone from a different race they will understand it can be another name for dogs (it can be the name for another languague)
Monolinguals: with someone from the same race they will not understand it can be another name for dogs but rather a colour (it cant be the name for another languague)
A bilingual advantage?
- Adults: Better executive function
– Bialystok research - Do infants show the same?
- Two studies: 7-months and 12-months
Kovacs & Mehler, PNAS 2010
- Bilingual infants aged 7-months
- Taught to turn head to one side in anticipation of a reward
- Given a structure, e.g. AAB (le-le-mo)and ABC(le-mo,ve)
- Shown two white squares
- Each time it came on, a cute animal appeared in the square on one side
condition 1 :
-white square > ABC = the animal would appear
- white square > AAB = nothing would apear
result = both Bilinguals and Mono linguals were able to understand that
Condition 2:
-white square > ABC = nothing would apear
- white square > AAB = animal would appear
- Could they learn? And learn to switch?
result
- monolinguals could not switch rules in this number of trials like the bilinguals did
