EXAM 3: Bilingual Development

Question 1

Bilingualism

Answer 1

Ability to use 2 languages in everyday life
More than half of the world is bilingual and bilingualism is often the norm in many countries

Question 2

Early vs. Late Bilinguals

Answer 2

Early bilinguals:
Early age of acquisition (AoA) of 2nd language (L2)
Acquired both L1 and L2 early in life

Late bilinguals:
Late age of acquisition of L2
Acquired L1 early in life and L2 after childhood

Question 3

Simultaneous vs. Successive Bilinguals

Answer 3

Simultaneous bilinguals: Learned both languages at the same time

Successive bilinguals:
Learned L2 after the first

Question 4

Balanced vs. Unbalanced bilinguals

Answer 4

Balanced bilinguals:
Mastery of 2 languages equivalently

Unbalanced bilinguals: Greater proficiency in one language over the other, or use dominant language significantly more

Question 5

Additive vs. Subtractive bilinguals

Answer 5

Additive bilinguals:
Upon successive acquisition of L2, L1 is kept

Subtractive bilinguals:
Upon successive acquisition of L2, L1 is lost

Question 6

Abrams (2014)

Answer 6

Question:
Can late bilinguals produce cognitive advantages/disadvantages that are typical of early bilinguals?
Early bilinguals advantage: Executive function
Early bilinguals disadvantage: Lexical access and vocab

Study:
3 groups:
1. Monolingual English
2. Late bilinguals
3. Early bilinguals
Tested executive function with Flanker tests
Tested lexical access with picture naming task

Results:
Early and late bilinguals EQUIVALENT for both executive function and lexical access:

-Lexical deficit
-Executive function benefit

This is associated with the proficient, habitual use of L2 than development of early bilinguals; even if AoA differ, bilinguals have the same advantages/disadvantages

Question 7

Flanker tests

Answer 7

Decide direction of arrow in the midst of distraction, tests selective attention and speed of decision

Control
Go distraction
Congruent distraction
Incongruent distraction

Question 8

Ways to measure lexical vocab:

Answer 8

1. Single language measure
   Measuring just 1 language
2. Total conceptual vocabulary
   Measuring total concepts that can be expressed
   i.e. 집 and house count as 1
3. Total vocabular
   Measuring total number of words that can be expressed in BOTH languages
   i.e. 집 is 1, house is 1

Question 9

Bilingual lexical deficit in single language measure

Answer 9

Bilinguals have this deficit because they must divide their time/resources to 2 language/vocab sets

Lacking in single language measure and slower to recall vocab words than monolinguals

But with double language measure (concept or total), they are equivalent or more than monolingual vocabulary

Question 10

Unimodal bilinguals

Answer 10

2 languages of SAME modality
speech-speech

Question 11

Bimodal bilinguals

Answer 11

2 languages of DIFFERENT modality
speech-sign

Question 12

Emmorey (2008)

Answer 12

Question:
Bilinguals outperform monolinguals on cognitive tasks because they need to switch from one language to another actively (unimodal)
So bimodals who do not need to switch languages do not have same advantage?

Study:
3 groups:
1. Monolinguals
2. Bimodal bilinguals
3. Unimodal bilinguals
Tested on flanker test

Results:
Unimodals were fastests
bimodals and monolinguals had similar performance
Proved that the bilingual advantage in executive function exists because of active switching between 2 languages exclusive to unimodals and bimodals do not have this same advantage

Question 13

Code-switching (CS)

Answer 13

Alternating between 2 languages without violating sociolinguistic (pragmatic) and grammar rules
Often misunderstood as confusion or language deficiency, but NOT TRUE!
Code switching is NOT a sign of confusion

Often CS because of limited language resources for young bilinguals, or easier to retrieve word in other language and external factors such as community occurrences

Question 14

Inter-sentential codeswitching

Answer 14

Switching BETWEEN sentenced
No need to be governed by syntactic rules of other language

Question 15

Intra-sentential codeswitching

Answer 15

Switching INSIDE a sentence
Governed by syntactic rules of other language

Question 16

Do infants get confused?

Answer 16

Confusion only occurs with simultaneous infants who may be learning 2 languages at the same time– how do these infants tell apart the 2 languages they are learning simultaneously?

Question 17

Sebastian-Galles (2012)

Answer 17

Question:
Do bilingual infants have an advantage in visual language discrimination
Can bilingual children differentiate 2 languages by just visual cues?

Study:
5 groups of 18 month olds:
1. Spanish/catalan bilingual
2. French-English bilingual*
3. Spanish monolingual
4. Catalan monolingual
5. English monolingual *
Watched silent video recordings of French-English bilingual speakers code-switching
Tested to see if each group could differentiate the 2 languages using ONLY visual cues

Results:
ALL monolinguals failed to detect different
BOTH bilingual groups succeeded in differentiating, even the spanish-catalan could still differentiate even though the two languages were neither its L2 or L1

Bilingual children CAN differentiate 2 languages with just visual cues, no concerns for confusion

Question 18

Bosch and Sebastian-Galles (2003)

Answer 18

Question:
Can infants with bilingual exposure perceive native-sound and foreign sound contrasts?

Study:
3 groups:
1. Spanish monolingual
2. Catalan monolingual
3. Spanish-catalan bilingual
Exposed to contrasts present in catalan only

Results:
@ 4 months old, all 3 groups could distinguish

@ 8 months old, only monolinguals could contrasts, bilinguals couldn’t

@ 12 months old, bilinguals could discriminate again

Learning 2 languages may slightly delay phonological discrimination

Question 19

Can infants associate parents with language?

Answer 19

Short answer no
Misconception that if each parent spoke only 1 language with bilingual child, it’ll make them less confused, but proved false
Cannot associate language with a person

Question 20

Bilingual babbling

Answer 20

Evidence for language differentiation in simultaneous dual language acquisition
Infants as young as 6 months old can differentiate and babble in French and English respectively

Question 21

Adult code-switching Heinlein (2022)

Answer 21

Question:
Why do bilingual parents code switch?

Study:
Took recordings of bilingual families when infant was 10 and 18 months old

Result:
Rate of codeswitching low at 10 months and higher at 18 months
Parents codeswitched more intersentential than intrasentential
Most common reason was to enhance infant’s understanding and teach vocabulary for bilingual acquisition

Question 22

Critical period

Answer 22

Limited developmental period during which it is possible to acquire a language to normal, native level

Controversial: when is it and what are its boundaries?

Question 23

Wiley (2003)

Answer 23

Question:
Tested critical period hypothesis for L2 acquisition (AoA) and SES

Study:
Used survey responses from over 2.3 million immigrants

Results:
Declines in L2 proficiency as a function of age of immigration of all education/SES groups across the board
L2 success decreases as AoA increases
SES affects L2 success as well, formal education, higher L2 success

Question 24

Kazmi (2002)

Answer 24

Question:
Does the onset and type of initial language exposure contribute to critical period?
If they had previous L2 exposure, can it help them achieve better performance on L2?

Study:
3 groups:
1. Late deafness (exposed to spoken language) and Late ASL
2. Deaf since birth and late ASL
3. Deaf since birth and early ASL

Results:
Late deafness with early language exposure had higher ASL performance
Timing of L1 experience is a strong influence of capability of learning L2 later
If exposed to language during critical period, better L2 acquisition
No exposure to early language during critical period, not good L2