A longitudinal analysis of sentence interpretation in bilingual children

Abstract

This longitudinal study used sentence interpretation tasks to consider growth in language processing among school-aged children learning Vietnamese and English. Thirty-two children participated yearly over three time points. Children were asked to identify the agent of sentences that manipulated linguistic cues relevant to Vietnamese (animacy) and English (word order). Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine change in cue use over time as well as the relation between cue use and proficiency in each language. Findings include exclusive reliance on word order by the end point, nearly identical group-level cue-use patterns across languages with individual variation, and positive relationships between language proficiency and cue use. Findings are discussed within the unified competition model (MacWhinney, 2004) and the literature on sequential bilingualism.

Pathways for learning two languages: lexical and grammatical associations within and across languages in sequential bilingual children

“…The purpose of this study is to examine cross-domain and cross-language relationships among sequential bilingual children who speak Vietnamese (L1) and English (L2). Growth trajectories for the L1 and L2 of this longitudinal sample have been reported previously (Pham & Kohnert, 2014; Pham & Ebert, 2015). There are two sets of predictions that correspond to cross-sectional data at the first time point and longitudinal data over four years: cross-sectional : Based on previous studies with sequential bilingual children (e.g., Kohnert et al, 2010; Simon-Cereijido & Gutierrez-Clellen, 2009), lexical-grammatical associations are predicted to be positive in nature.…”

“…Finally, as part of a longitudinal study on linguistic cue use among Vietnamese–English bilinguals, Pham and Ebert (2015) 1 reported correlations between L1 and L2 picture naming and sentence repetition at three time points. Picture naming and sentence repetition were associated at each time point for Vietnamese (r = .53 to .75) and English (r = .58 to .83).…”

Modeling Input Factors in Second Language Acquisition of the English Article Construction

“…The degree of the adaptation to the target processing strategies differs across studies. This difference may be due to the particular language-specific differences in strategies by native speakers of the two languages, bilingual proficiency (Kilborn and Cooreman, 1987;McDonald and Heilenman, 1991;Rounds and Kanagy, 1998;Su, 2001;Jackson, 2008;Morett and MacWhinney, 2013;Pham and Ebert, 2016), amounts of L2 exposure (McDonald, 1987;Sasaki, 1991;Heilenman and McDonald, 1993), and starting age of acquiring the L2 or age of arrival in the L2 speaking environment (McDonald, 1987;Liu et al, 1992;Reyes and Hernandez, 2006;Pham and Kohnert, 2010). Early bilinguals with a young age of onset of learning the L2 tend to show an amalgamation of processing strategies from both the L1 and the L2, thus demonstrating an "in-between" profile (Hernández et al, 1994).…”

Internal and External Factors That Support Children's Minority First Language and English

“…Furthermore, this study focused on children who speak Vietnamese, an understudied language in the area of child development. Whereas there have been a handful of studies on duallanguage learning in Vietnamese-English bilinguals (e.g., Pham, 2016;Pham & Ebert, 2016;, 2014, none has specifically examined internal and external factors in this bilingual population. This study used parent survey data and direct child measures to examine factors related to L1 and L2 vocabulary skills.…”