Sentence interpretation by typically developing Vietnamese–English bilingual children

Abstract

We examined developing bilinguals’ use of animacy and word order cues during sentence interpretation tasks administered in each of their languages. Participants were 6- to 8-year-old children who learned Vietnamese as a first language and English as a second language (n = 23). Participants listened to simple sentences and identified the agent or “doer” of the action. English-only peers (n = 23) served as a comparison group. Results indicated that the bilingual group relied more on animacy than the English-only group when interpreting sentences in English and that the bilingual group used a blending or “amalgamation” of cues to interpret English and Vietnamese sentences. Significant within-group variation in cue preference was investigated as a function of age and proficiency in the first language and second language.

Bilingual children with primary language impairment: Issues, evidence and implications for clinical actions

“…Significant individual variation in performance within relatively homogenous groups of bilingual children has been documented on traditional phonological, lexical-semantic, morphosyntactic and narrative tasks (e.g., Gildersleeve-Neumann et al, 2008; Kan & Kohnert, 2005; Kohnert et al, in press). This significant variation also extends to performance on a variety of basic language processing tasks, including novel morpheme learning, nonword repetition, lexical decision, and sentence interpretation (e.g., Kohnert & Danahy, 2007; Kohnert, Windsor, & Yim, 2006; Pham & Kohnert, in press; Windsor & Kohnert, 2004; Windsor et al, 2009). …”

“…For example, Pham and Kohnert (in press) examined the use of animacy and word order cues on a classic sentence interpretation task in both languages of typically developing 6-to 8-year old children who learned Vietnamese as their L1 and English as their L2. All bilingual study participants attended the same educational program, had similar cultural and language experiences and were drawn from the same socioeconomic group.…”

“…Although the blending of Vietnamese and English strategies was the most common pattern for the bilingual group, this was by no means a one-size-fits-all response pattern. Some bilingual participants relied heavily on animacy (a cue more consistent to Vietnamese) to process English, some used word order, a cue consistent with English, to process Vietnamese, some used separate cues for each language and others used a blending of cues for both language (Pham & Kohnert, in press). …”

A longitudinal analysis of sentence interpretation in bilingual children

“…In sum, word order is a stronger cue to meaning than animacy in English, while animacy may be a stronger cue than word order in Vietnamese (cf. Pham & Kohnert, 2010). In addition, these two cues differ in the type of linguistic information they provide.…”

“…Target cues are animacy and word order. This study is a longitudinal extension of Pham and Kohnert (2010).…”