Chapter 4. Introducing the DUFDE project

Schlyter, Suzanne

doi:10.1515/9783110846065.73

Cited by 13 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…However, as far as French and German are concerned, studies such as those by Müller and Kupisch (2003), Bonnesen (2005), Möhring (2005), and Rieckborn (2007) show that a rather balanced development as far as the age of acquisition of certain grammatical phenomena is concerned is also reflected in the MLU values. See also Schlyter (1990a) and Köppe (1994) for MLU values of French/German bilingual first language acquisition. than in German.…”

Section: Françoismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Up until the age of 3;09, Christophe is willing to speak French. His French gradually decreases again, starting at the age of 3;10, at which point the recordings were made only every three months (see Schlyter, 1990a). At the age of 2;10, just before the point at which Christophe almost totally refuses to speak French, there is evidence that he has acquired finiteness (see Bonnesen, 2006Bonnesen, , 2007.…”

Section: Christophementioning

confidence: 99%

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The status of the “weaker” language in unbalanced French/German bilingual language acquisition

Bonnesen

2009

Bilingualism

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In this paper, I investigate the status of the so-called "weaker" language, French, in French/German bilingual first language acquisition, using data from two children from the DuFDE-corpus (see Schlyter, 1990a), Christophe and François. Schlyter (1993, 1994) proposes that the "weaker" language in the unbalanced children she studied has the status equivalent to that of a second language (L2). I will verify this assumption on the basis of certain grammatical phenomena, such as the use of subject clitics, null subjects and negation, with respect to which L1 and L2 learners show different developmental patterns. The results indicate that the "weaker" language of the children analyzed in this study cannot be interpreted as an L2. Both children behave predominantly like monolingual and balanced bilingual L1 learners in both languages.

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Section: Françoismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Christophementioning

confidence: 99%

The status of the “weaker” language in unbalanced French/German bilingual language acquisition

Bonnesen

2009

Bilingualism

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“…Having examined some constructions that had been attributed to acquisition failure in what is supposed to be the WL of bilingual children, let us now look at the nonpreferred and arguably nondominant language of bilingual children to detect possible signs of incomplete acquisition. With this goal in mind, I briefly summarize some analyses of data from two French-German children in the DuFDE (Deutsch und Französisch-Doppelter Erstspracherwerb/German and French-Simultaneous First Language Acquisition) corpus who avoided speaking French for an extended period of time; see Schlyter (1990) for more details concerning methods of data collection and analysis of this corpus. Christophe is the second child of a French mother and a German father growing up bilingually in Northern Germany.…”

Section: Signs Of Weakness In the Nonpreferred Language?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The weaker language in early child bilingualism: Acquiring a first language as a second language?

Meisel

2007

Applied Psycholinguistics

168

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Past research demonstrates that first language (L1)-like competence in each language can be attained in simultaneous acquisition of bilingualism by mere exposure to the target languages. The question is whether this is also true for the "weaker" language (WL). The WL hypothesis claims that the WL differs fundamentally from monolingual L1 and balanced bilingual L1 and resembles second language (L2) acquisition. In this article, these claims are put to a test by analyzing "unusual" constructions in WLs, possibly indicating acquisition failure, and by reporting on analyses of the use of French by bilinguals whose dominant language is German. The available evidence does not justify the claim that WLs resemble L2. Instead, it shows that WL development can be delayed, but does not suggest acquisition failure. Finally, reduced input is unlikely to cause acquisition failure. The fundamental issue at stake is to explore the limits of the human language making capacity.Past research on child bilingualism has provided a large body of evidence that strongly supports the claim that simultaneous acquisition of two or more languages can justly be qualified as an instance of multiple "first language" (L1) acquisition (see de Houwer, 1995;and Meisel, 2004, for state-of-the-art summaries). The most crucial findings on which this assessment is based are that (a) linguistic systems are differentiated from early on, (b) grammatical development proceeds through the same developmental sequences as in monolingual acquisition, and (c) grammatical knowledge ultimately attained in each of the languages of bilingual children is identical in nature to that of their respective monolingual counterparts. It is plausible to assume that all three properties can be attributed to capacities made available by the innate human language faculty. Within the theoretical framework of universal grammar (UG), one can thus conclude that multilingual as well as monolingual acquisition is guided by principles of UG.The fact that multiple L1 development can be achieved by mere exposure to more than one language, without specific coaching or other types of additional

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“…He was recorded along with other children in the DUFDE 6 project at the Romance Department of the University of Hamburg. For details of this research project, see Schlyter (1990) or Koppe (1994).…”

Section: Subject Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of prepositional case in a bilingual child

Stenzel¹

1996

Linguistics

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This is a study of the acquisition of prepositional case in a bilingual child, with special attention to the mutual import of linguistic theory on theories of language acquisition and vice versa. Another point of interest is the nature of grammatical and lexical representations in bilinguals. I discuss the nature of lexical entries of German prepositions that assign two different cases and motivate my claim that the main problem for the child is to establish the correct format for lexical entries, and that the observed development can best be accounted for by a German-internal explanation, thus ruling out any influence of the child's bilingual situation.

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Chapter 4. Introducing the DUFDE project

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

The status of the “weaker” language in unbalanced French/German bilingual language acquisition

The status of the “weaker” language in unbalanced French/German bilingual language acquisition

The weaker language in early child bilingualism: Acquiring a first language as a second language?

Development of prepositional case in a bilingual child

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