Fifty years of language maintenance and language dominance in bilingual Hispanic immigrants.

Abstract

Spanish language tests of 801 Cuban and Mexican immigrants showed no evidence of language loss during 50 years of U.S. residence; a few years after immigration, their English vocabulary approximated that of English monolinguals. The critical-age hypothesis was not supported for the acquisition of English vocabulary when English schooling and language usage were controlled by multiple regression. Most Ss continued to speak about as much Spanish as English; but read, wrote, and heard (on television and radio) far more English than Spanish. Under these conditions, Ss maintained Spanish dominance on tests of vocabulary recognition, lexical decision, and oral comprehension. Dominance was task specific and shifted to English on a category generation task about 12 years after immigration. No evidence of bilingual language interference was found; this is attributed to the strong Spanish foundation of the participants.

Age Constraints on Second-Language Acquisition

“…A matched subgroup analysis confirmed that the AOA effect on foreign accent ratings was not due to factors that were confounded with AOA as in previous research (e.g., Bachi, 1956;Bahrick et al, 1994;see Flege, 1998a). Two matched subgroups of 20 Korean participants each were established by selecting participants who differed in AOA but did not differ significantly in terms of how much education they had received in the United States, their length of residence in the United States, or their use of English and Korean.…”

“…However, this does not mean necessarily that the "age" effects presented so far can be attributed exclusively, or even primarily, to AOA. As mentioned earlier, AOA is typically confounded with other variables in studies examining large immigrant populations (see, e.g., Bachi, 1956;Bahrick et al, 1994). This study was no exception, for there was multi-collinearity among variables associated with the Korean participants' AOAs.…”

“…As already mentioned, the Korean participants were selected according to AOA. However, as in previous studies examining large groups of immigrants (see, e.g., Bachi, 1956;Bahrick et al, 1994), the Koreans' AOAs were confounded with other variables that might influence L2 learning, L2 performance, or both. As will be discussed, the variables confounded with AOA in this study were chronological age, the native Koreans' average selfestimated use of English, their self-estimated use of Korean, years of residence in the United States, and the number of years of education they had received in the United States.…”

“…Snow (1979) showed that phonology and morphosyntax emerged as separate factors in a study examining the naturalistic acquisition of Dutch by native English children and adults over a 1-year period. Some researchers have concluded that a critical period exists only for phonology (Scovel, 1988;Singleton, 1989;Bahrick, Hall, Goggin, Bahrick, & Berger, 1994). Others have concluded that a critical period ends sooner for phonology than for morphology or syntax (Long, 1990;Hurford, 1991).…”

Consolidation theory and retrograde amnesia in humans

“…For instance, Bahrick and his colleagues (Bahrick, 1983(Bahrick, , 1984Bahrick & Hall, 1991;Bahrick, Hall, Goggin, Bahrick, & Berger, 1994) examined the very longterm retention of information learned during high school (Spanish vocabulary words; mathematical concepts; spatial maps) and concluded that if information is not learned well, it will be completely forgotten within 3-5 years. However, if it is adequately encoded, it will enter "permastore" and persist essentially undiminished across 50 years (Bahrick, 2000).…”