Bilingual lexicon development in German in preschool children with the home languages Russian and Turkish

Abstract

The present study examined the development of lexical abilities in German in Turkish-/Russian-German bilinguals. In particular, the effect of the age of onset and the socio-economic status, identified through self-reported parental education and occupation, on the productive and perceptive lexicon – verbs and nouns – was investigated. Two groups, one with 39 Russian-German and one with 55 Turkish-German simultaneous and sequential bilinguals from Berlin nursery schools, participated in the study. The age range was 26 to 47 months (mean age: 38.5 months, Standard Deviation (SD) = 5.8). The age of onset ranged from 0 to 39 months (mean age of onset: 21.0 months, SD = 9.9) and did not differ significantly in both investigated groups. The mean length of exposure to German was 17.5 months (SD = 9.3). The results showed that age of onset negatively impacts the productive lexicon of both groups. Russian-speaking children were somewhat better in the development of the perceptive lexicon in German. No effects for parental education and occupation were found. The results are discussed with respect to sensitivity and age of acquisition, and possible differences in the home language environment of Turkish and Russian bilinguals.

Arabic-Swedish-Speaking Children Living in Sweden: Vocabulary Skills in Relation to Age, SES and Language Exposure

“…Age of onset to (L2) Swedish correlated significantly with Swedish vocabulary; the earlier the children were exposed, the higher were their comprehension and production scores. Since length of exposure is often related to cumulative amount of input in a language, this finding is hardly surprising and also in agreement with other reports in the literature (e.g., Armon-Lotem et al, 2011;Gagarina et al, 2017). It is documented here for the first time for bilingual children growing up in a Swedish context.…”

“…Outside of Sweden, bilingual vocabulary development has regularly been found to be influenced by age, SES and patterns of language input/exposure; however, these factors do not necessarily affect the home language and the majority language in the same way. For instance, many studies document robust vocabulary gains with age in preschoolers and school-age pupils for the majority language, whilst vocabulary growth with age in the minority home language is often weaker, despite substantial input (e.g., Gagarina et al, 2017;Ganuza & Hedman, 2019;Gathercole et al, 2013;Hoff et al, 2014;Lindgren, 2018). SES, often operationalised via parental education, has also been found to affect vocabulary development differentially, where high SES is positively related to gains in the majority language but not in the minority language (Armon-Lotem et al, 2011;Cobo-Lewis et al, 2002a, 2002bLeseman, 2000;Meir & Armon-Lotem, 2017;Prevoo et al, 2014).…”

Russian–German five-year-olds: What omissions in sentence repetition tell us about linguistic knowledge, memory skills and their interrelation

“…On the basis of a parental questionnaire (adapted from Gagarina, Klassert & Topaj, 2010) and IQ tests (Roid, Miller, Pomplun & Koch, 2013), children with deficits in hearing, or with atypical neurological or cognitive development were excluded. Children whose performance was lower than one standard deviation (SD) below the average in an NWRT in either language (Lindner, Held, Lomako & Gagarina, 2014; German version: Wagner, Held & Lindner, 2013; Russian version: Gagarina & Valentik-Klein, 2013) were also excluded, since this task is considered reliably differential for DLD (e.g., Thordardottir & Brandeker, 2013). The children had at least one Russian-speaking parent (when only one, always the mother).…”

Sprachkontaktdauer: Auswirkungen auf den Sprachstand im Deutschen abhängig vom Alter des Deutscherwerbs und Sprach-gebrauch im familiären Umfeld

“…Auch für einige andere soziodemographische Variablen, die den Deutscherwerb direkt oder indirekt durch Sprachkontakt beeinflussen, etwa Bildungsgrad der Eltern (cf. Gagarina et al 2017), lassen sich Studien finden, die keinen Zusammenhang mit aktuellen Deutschkenntnissen detektierten.…”